MX7 


REPRESENTATIVE  PHI  BETA  KAPPA  ORATIONS 


REPRESENTATIVE 
PHI  BETA  KAPPA 
ORATIONS  . 


EDITED   FOR   THE   UNITED    CHAPTERS 
OF  PHI   BETA   KAPPA  BY 

CLARK  S.  NORTHUP 
WILLIAM'C.  LANE 
JOHN  C.  SCHWAB 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

Btoerjsi&e  prt££  Cambridge 
MDCCCCXV 


COPYRIGHT,   1915,   BY  HOUOHTON   MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 


OF  TH 


THIS  EDITION  ONE  THOUSAND  COPIES  WERE  PRINTED.      APRIL  1915 


tfis 


PREFACE 

THE  Phi  Beta  Kappa  was  organized  not  only  as  a  fraternal 
but  as  a  literary  and  debating  society;  and  the  exercises  appro 
priate  in  such  a  society  were  conducted  with  more  or  less  regu 
larity  for  many  years.  In  addition  to  these  exercises  there  grew 
up  in  several  chapters  the  custom  of  an  annual  meeting  with 
an  oration  and  a  poem.  The  annual  address  has  now  become, 
indeed,  a  custom  in  most  of  the  eighty-six  chapters  ;  and  thus  has 
been  produced  a  considerable  body  of  literature.  The  list  of 
those  addresses  which  have  been  printed  already  includes  some 
hundreds  of  titles. 

The  range  of  subjects  dealt  with  by  these  orators  is  a  wide 
one.  Many  have  been  educators  and  have  discussed  topics  con 
nected  with  their  profession;  others  have  dealt  with  political,  his 
torical,  social,  or  religious  topics.  Many  of  these  addresses  possess 
intrinsic  value;  and  nearly  all,  even  the  earliest,  have  still  some 
value  as  reflecting  the  opinions  of  their  times  or  of  their  authors. 

It  has  been  thought  by  many  that  some  of  the  most  represen 
tative  of  these  orations  should  be  reprinted,  not  only  because 
they  are  in  themselves  worthy  of  thus  receiving  a  new  lease  of 
life,  but  also  because  such  a  collection  would  help  to  emphasize 
the  aims  for  which  the  Society  has  always  stood  —  the  cultiva 
tion  of  friendship,  literature,  and  morality. 

To  the  Committee  named  below,  therefore,  the  United  Chap 
ters  has  entrusted  the  task  of  selecting  these  orations  and  of  see 
ing  the  volume  through  the  press.  The  Committee  has  found  it 
by  no  means  easy  to  make  a  selection;  doubtless  several  more 
volumes  as  good  as  this  could  be  made.  The  Committee  hopes 
that  the  reception  accorded  this  volume  may  be  so  favorable 
as  to  make  possible  the  publication  of  a  second  series  of  orations, 
and  perhaps  a  volume  of  poems. 

The  frontispiece  is  from  a  crayon  portrait  of  Emerson,  about 
1846,  by  either  Hildreth  or  Johnston,  and  first  appeared  in  Vol 
ume  V  of  Emerson's  Journals.  It  is  here  reproduced  by  the 
kind  permission  of  the  owners  of  the  copyright. 


vi  PREFACE 

For  permission  to  reprint  these  orations  the  Committee  ex 
tends  its  thanks  to  all  the  authors  represented,  and  to  the  fol 
lowing  publishers:  Hough  ton  Mifflin  Company,  the  Macmillan 
Company,  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  Moffat,  Yard  and  Company, 
Harper  and  Brothers,  the  Atlantic  Monthly  Company,  the  Har 
vard  Graduates'  Magazine  Association,  the  Tufts  College  Grad 
uate,  the  Oberlin  Alumni  Magazine,  the  University  of  Chicago 
Press. 

CLARK  S.  NORTHUP. 

WILLIAM  C.  LANE. 

JOHN  C.  SCHWAB. 


CONTENTS 

HORACE  BUSHNELL.  The  True  Wealth  or  Weal  of  Nations. 
Yale,  1837 r ,  .  .  1 

H  WALDO  EMERSON.     The   American   Scholar.  Har 
vard,  1837 24 

JOB  DURFEE.  The  Influence  of  Scientific  Discovery  and  In 
vention  on  Social  and  Political  Progress.  Brown,  1843  .  43 

ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY.  The  Connection  between 
Science  and  Religion.  Harvard,  1845 76 

EORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS.    The  American  Doctrine  of  Lib 
erty.  Harvard,  1862  .     .;*» 94 

^FRANCIS  ANDREW  MARCH.    The  Scholar  of  To-day.  Am- 

herst,  1868 112 

ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK.  Intellectual  Leadership  in 
American  History.  Brown,  1875 129 

CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS.  The  Relations  of  Higher  Educa 
tion  to  National  Prosperity.  Vermont,  1876 152 

CHARLES  HENRY  BELL.  The  Worship  of  Success.  Dart 
mouth,  1881 174 

>WENDELL  PHILLIPS.    The  Scholar  in  a  Republic.  Harvard, 

1881 191 

ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS.  The  Social  Plaint.  New 
York  Alumni,  1892 216 

ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE.  Evolution  vs.  Revolution,  in 
Politics.  New  York  Alumni,  1896;  Vassar,  1906;  Cornell, 
1913 233 

JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN.  The  Unity  of  Human  Nature.  Ho- 
bart,  1901 .  254 


viii  CONTENTS 

BLISS  PERRY.   The  Amateur  Spirit.  Columbia,  Tufts,  1901  263 

BENJAMIN  IDE  WHEELER.   Things  Human.  Chicago,  1901  276 

FELIX  EMANTJEL  SCHELLING.     Humanities,   Gone   and  to 
Come.    Pennsylvania,  1902      ..........  286 

ALBERT  SHAW.  Jefferson's  Doctrines  under  New  Tests.  Wil 
liam  and  Mary,  1904      ............  298 

JOHN  FRANKLIN  JAMESON.  The  Age  of  Erudition.  Chicago, 
1905    .................     .326 

CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT.     Academic    Freedom.  Cornell, 
1907    ..................  344 

ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART.   The  Hope  of  Democracy.  Tufts, 
1907    ..................  362 

EDWARD  LAMBE  PARSONS.     Democracy   and   a   Prophetic 
Idealism.  Leland  Stanford,  Jr.,  1907    .......  377 


AUGUSTUS  GROSVENOR.  The  Attitude  of  the  Scholar. 
North  Carolina,  1909     .     .......     ......  395 

JOSIAH  ROYCE.  What  is  Vital  in  Christianity  ?  Vassar,  1909  404 

/s  BARRETT  WENDELL.  The  Mystery  of  Education.  Johns  Hop 

kins,  1909    .........    .    .;  .....  442 

t 

^<WOODROW  WILSON.  The  Spirit  of  Learning.  Harvard,  1909  466 

PAUL  SHOREY.    The  Unity  of  the  Human  Spirit.   Oberlin, 
1910    ,  ....  .481 


REPRESENTATIVE  PHI  BETA  KAPPA  ORATIONS 


REPRESENTATIVE  PHI  BETA  KAPPA 
ORATIONS 

: ..  •  .\\  - :  -1' :: •"• 

THE  TRUE  WEALTH  OR  WEAL  OF  NATIONS 

BY  HORACE  BUSHNELL 
Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Connecticut,  at  Yale  College,  August  15, 1837. 

IT  is  truly  a  great  satisfaction  to  me,  that  I  appear  before  you, 
not  to  claim  a  place,  but  only  to  supply  a  chasm  in  the  succes 
sion  of  your  distinguished  and  eloquent  speakers.  I  am  thus  per 
mitted  to  feel,  that  I  discharge  an  office  rather  of  good  will  and 
fraternity,  than  of  ambition;  and  if  I  do  not  leap  into  the  chasm 
that  has  occurred,  with  exactly  the  zeal  of  a  Curtius,  I  may  at 
least  cherish  the  hope,  as  I  go  down,  that  the  ground  will  close 
over  me,  and  the  line  of  your  distinguished  orators  pass  on  with 
out  any  mark  of  disruption. 

I  propose  to  speak  of  the  greatness  and  happiness  of  states, 
and  especially  of  our  own;  which  I  shall  do,  not  ambitiously,  or 
as  coveting  the  distinction  of  an  orator,  but  in  the  way  of  prac 
tical  and  grave  discussion. 

Wherein  consists,  and  how  shall  be  attained,  the  true  greatness 
and  felicity  of  a  state? 

My  chief  concern  will  be  to  offer  something  which,  for  argu 
ment  and  doctrine,  is  worthy  of  so  grave  a  problem.  I  hope  it 
may  appear,  that  a  ground  is  here  open  for  the  erection  of  a 
science  more  adequate,  in  some  respects,  than  the  science,  so 
called,  of  political  economy;  and  one  that  shall  base  itself  on 
higher  and  more  determinate  principles.  That  the  body  and 
form  of  such  a  science  can  be  developed  in  a  single  discourse, 
will  not  be  supposed.  If  I  am  able  to  open  a  passage,  so  that  we 
may  look  in  upon  the  field  to  be  occupied,  or  if  I  may  but  excite 
to  investigation  of  the  subject  the  young  men  of  this  honored 
university,  who  are  soon  to  fill  public  stations  and  diffuse  the 
leaven  of  their  opinions  in  every  part  of  the  republic,  my  end 
will  be  answered. 


2  HORACE  BUSHNELL 

If  any,  in  our  present  crisis  of  difficulty  and  depression,  have 
ceased  to  hope  for  their  country,  it  needs  to  be  remembered, 
as  a  check  to  this  precipitate  despair,  how  much  of  mischief  and 
misrule  every  great rijAtioh  has  had  to  survive.  Moreover,  I  know 
not  the  time  when  the  pyrospects  of  our  country,  judiciously 
vjeweii;  \visr£  tJriglitej  'than"  now.  That  we  are  able  to  bear  so 
violent  a  shock,  without  any  disruption  of  the  laws,  is  enough, 
in  itself,  to  encourage  new  confidence  in  our  institutions.  This 
strong-handed  compulsion,  too,  which  has  checked  the  impetu 
osity  and  the  increasing  recklessness  of  our  people,  is  accomplish 
ing,  by  force,  what  arguments  and  warnings  were  powerless  to 
effect  —  compelling  them  to  know  the  worth  of  principles  and  of 
wise  and  judicious  leaders.  We  have  not  yet  come  to  the  end 
of  our  institutions,  but  rather  to  an  interregnum  of  sobriety  and 
reason,  in  which  truth  may  find  a  place  to  interpose  her  counsels, 
and  in  which,  I  trust,  the  most  solid  and  healthful  principles  are 
to  find  a  more  ready  reception. 

It  is  in  this  confidence  that  I  now  speak.  And  while  I  am 
encouraged  by  the  temper  of  the  times,  I  cannot  expel  the  con 
viction,  too,  of  some  positive  and  peculiar  agreement  between 
my  subject  —  I  trust  also  between  the  principles  to  be  advanced 
—  and  a  destiny  of  real  greatness,  certainly  to  be  reached  by  our 
country.  There  are  too  many  prophetic  signs  admonishing  us, 
that  Almighty  Providence  is  pre-engaged  to  make  this  a  truly 
great  nation,  not  to  be  cheered  by  them,  and  set  ourselves  to  a 
search  after  the  true  principles  of  national  welfare,  with  a  con 
fidence  that  here,  at  last,  they  are  to  find  their  opportunity. 
This  western  world  had  not  been  preserved  unknown  through  so 
many  ages,  for  any  purpose  less  sublime,  than  to  be  opened,  at  a 
certain  stage  of  history,  and  become  the  theater  wherein  better 
principles  might  have  room  and  free  development.  Out  of  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  world,  too,  a  select  stock,  the  Saxon,  and  out 
of  this  the  British  family,  the  noblest  of  the  stock,  was  chosen  to 
people  our  country;  that  our  eagle,  like  that  of  the  prophet, 
might  have  the  cedars  of  Lebanon,  and  the  topmost  branches 
of  the  cedars,  to  plant  by  his  great  waters.  A  belt  of  temperate 
climate  was  also  marked  out  for  our  country,  in  the  midst  of  a 
vast  continent,  with  a  view,  it  would  seem,  to  preserve  the  vigor 
of  the  stock,  and  make  it  fruitful  here,  as  it  ever  has  been,  in 


THE   TRUE   WEALTH   OR   WEAL   OF   NATIONS        3 

great  names  and  great  actions.  Furthermore,  it  is  impossible  to 
glance  at  the  very  singular  territory  we  occupy,  without  perceiv 
ing  that  the  two  great  elements  of  force  are  to  be  developed 
together,  in  this  people,  as  they  never  yet  have  been  in  history. 
These  elements,  of  course,  are  weight  and  motion  —  vastness  of 
conception  and  vigor  of  action.  Though  we  have  a  field  every 
way  ample  to  contain  two  hundred  millions  of  inhabitants,  there 
is  yet  no  vast  central  inland,  remote  from  the  knowledge  and 
commerce  of  mankind,  where  a  people  may  dream  out  life,  in  the 
gigantic  but  crude  and  sluggish  images  of  Asiatic  repose.  Vast 
as  it  is,  and  filling  the  minds  of  its  people  always  with  images  of 
vastness,  it  is  yet  surrounded,  like  the  British  islands,  and  per 
meated,  like  Venice  itself,  by  the  waters  of  commerce  —  becom 
ing  thus  a  field  of  vastness,  not  in  repose,  but  in  action.  On  the 
west  it  meets  the  Pacific,  and  the  waters  of  another  hemisphere. 
On  the  east  and  south,  a  long  bold  line  of  coast  sweeps  round, 
showing  the  people  more  than  a  thousand  leagues  of  the  highway 
of  the  world.  On  the  north,  again,  stretches  a  vast  mediterranean 
of  congregated  seas,  sounding  to  each  other,  in  a  boisterous  wild 
chorus,  and  opening  their  gates  to  the  commerce  of  far-distant 
regions.  Then  again,  across  the  land,  down  all  the  slopes  and 
through  valleys  large  enough  for  empires,  sweep  rivers  that  are 
moving  lakes.  All  the  features  of  the  land  are  such  as  conspire 
to  form  a  people  of  vast  conceptions,  and  the  most  intense  prac 
tical  vigor  and  activity.  And  already  do  these  two  elements  of 
force  appear  in  our  people,  in  a  combination  more  striking  and 
distinct  than  ever  before  in  any  people  whose  education  was  so 
unripe.  Need  I  say,  that  such  a  people  cannot  exist  without  a 
great  history.  We  have  been  told,  that  stars  of  nobility  and 
orders  of  hierarchy,  as  they  exist  in  the  old  world,  are  indispen 
sable,  as  symbols,  to  make  authority  visible,  and  inspire  the  peo 
ple  with  great  and  patriotic  sentiments.  But  how  shall  we  long 
for  these,  in  a  country  where  God  has  ennobled  the  land  itself  in 
every  feature,  filling  it  with  the  signs  of  his  own  august  royalty, 
and  training  the  people  up  to  spiritual  vastness  and  force  by 
symbols  of  his  own! 

But  we  detain  our  subject.   Plato,  Locke,  and  other  philoso 
phers  who  have  written  theoretically  concerning  government, 


4  HORACE  BUSHNELL 

failed  to  establish  any  conclusive  doctrine,  only  because  they 
busied  themselves  in  planning  constitutions,  and  discussing  the 
forms  of  government.  Forms  must  be  the  birth  of  circumstances, 
not  of  any  abstract  or  absolute  doctrine.  The  attempt  of  Locke, 
seated  in  his  study,  to  produce  a  complete  frame  of  government 
for  South  Carolina,  was  one  of  signal  audacity,  and  worthy  of 
the  very  signal  defeat  it  met  in  its  application. 

Civil  philosophy,  if  any  such  thing  is  possible,  must  begin 
with  a  definition  of  the  object  of  the  civil  state,  and  confine  itself 
to  adjusting  the  principles,  not  the  forms,  by  which  that  object 
may  be  secured.  There  is  always  some  end  or  object,  some  good 
pursued  by  a  state,  which  determines  its  polity.  The  institu 
tions  of  Lycurgus,  for  example,  have  their  object  in  the  forma 
tion  of  a  valorous  people.  The  Spartan  state,  accordingly,  never 
advances  in  wealth  or  in  the  arts,  never  becomes  a  truly  polite 
nation,  never  even  adds  to  her  empire  by  conquest.  All  the  lines 
of  her  history  and  polity  terminate  together  in  producing  a  den 
of  lions.  The  Roman  state,  in  like  manner,  concentrated  its  aim 
on  the  pursuit  of  empire,  and  no  bird  or  beast  of  prey  was  ever 
more  constant  to  its  instincts,  than  the  Roman  policy  to  its 
object,  till  it  achieved  the  dominion  of  the  world.  Other  nations 
have  pursued  objects  more  complex,  falling  of  course  into  sys 
tems  of  polity  equally  complex  with  their  objects.  The  great 
fundamental  question,  then,  on  which  everything  in  civil  phi 
losophy  hinges,  is  to  determine  what  is  the  end  which  a  state 
ought  to  pursue,  or  in  what  the  true  greatness  and  felicity  of  a 
state  consists.  Which  makes  it  the  more  remarkable,  that  almost 
no  thought  has  been  expended  in  bringing  this  question  to  a 
definite  settlement.  Even  Lord  Bacon  soberly  puts  forth  the 
atrocious,  the  really  Satanic  doctrine,  "that  it  is  the  principal 
point  of  greatness,  in  any  state,  to  have  a  race  of  military  men, 
and  to  have  those  laws  and  customs  which  may  reach  forth  unto 
them  just  occasions  (as  may  be  pretended)  of  war."  What  a 
conception  to  be  given  out  by  a  philosopher!  And  yet  even  this 
very  shocking  way  of  greatness  would  have,  at  least,  the  merit  of 
making  a  soldierly  and  manly  people  —  just  what  we  are  most 
likely  to  miss  of  in  the  present  drift  of  society.  For  it  is  the  really 
shameful  fact,  that  we  are  now  turning  our  policies  and  public 
measures,  more  and  more,  on  questions  of  money  and  trade;  as  if 


THE  TRUE  WEALTH  OR  WEAL  OF  NATIONS    5 

property  were  the  real  end  of  statesmanship.  Since  the  words 
wealth  and  weal  are  brothers  of  the  same  family,  many  appear  to 
imagine  that  the  political  economists,  Adam  Smith  and  his  disci 
ples,  having  carefully  defined  that  national  wealth  which  is  to 
be  the  end  of  their  science,  have  therein  defined  that  national 
weal  which  is  the  true  end  of  statesmanship  —  a  mistake  that 
has  occurred  the  more  naturally,  that  the  general  deification  of 
money  begets  a  tendency  in  the  same  direction.  And  so  it  comes 
to  pass,  in  the  modern  school  of  nations,  especially  in  those  that 
have  conquered  to  themselves  the  great  principle  that  govern 
ment  is  for  the  good  of  the  governed,  that  their  evil  genius  seems 
about  to  plunge  them  into  the  miserable  delusion  of  confounding 
the  good  of  the  governed  with  money  and  possessions;  and  so  to 
rob  them  of  all  the  noble  advantages  they  had  gained.  Ceasing 
to  care,  any  more,  for  what  the  people  are,  the  great  question 
now  is,  what  are  they  to  have?  Under  the  supposed  auspices  of 
the  new  science,  a  new  era  of  misgovernment  is  thus  inaugu 
rated.  And  the  danger  is  that  the  free  nations  so  called  will 
become  mercenary  as  free;  nations  without  great  sentiments  or 
great  men;  without  a  history;  luxurious,  corrupt,  and,  in  the  end, 
miserable  enough  to  quite  match  the  worst  ages  of  despotism. 

There  is,  besides,  in  the  new  science  of  political  economy,  care 
ful  as  it  is  in  its  method,  and  apparently  unanswerable  in  its 
arguments,  an  immense  oversight,  which  is  sure  to  be  discovered 
by  its  final  effects  on  society,  and  to  quite  break  up  the  aspect  of 
reality  it  has  been  able  to  give  to  its  conclusions.  It  deifies,  in 
fact,  the  laws  of  trade;  not  observing  that  there  is  a  whole  side 
of  society  and  human  life  which  does  not  trade,  owns  no  laws 
of  trade,  stands  superior  to  trade,  wields,  in  fact,  a  mightier 
power  over  the  public  prosperity  itself  —  just  because  it  reaches 
higher  and  connects  with  nobler  ends.  Could  these  price-current 
philosophers  only  get  a  whole  nation  of  bankers,  brokers,  factors, 
ship-owners  and  salesmen,  to  themselves,  they  would  doubtless 
make  a  paradise  of  it  shortly  —  only  there  might  possibly  be  no 
public  love  in  the  paradise,  no  manly  temperance,  no  sense  of 
high  society,  no  great  orators,  leaders,  heroes. 

After  all  it  is  not  the  whole  question  —  this  question  of  econ 
omy.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  some  very  young  nation,  one 
that  has  not  yet  run  itself  into  all  manifold  industries  and  forms 


6  HORACE  BUSHNELL 

of  creation,  like  the  older  nations,  were  to  put  implicit  faith  in 
the  new  science,  and  consent  to  buy,  always,  what  she  can 
cheaper  buy  than  create;  so  to  become,  in  fact,  a  producer  of 
but  one  article  —  cotton,  for  example,  or  wheat.  Such  a  state 
will  be  no  complete  creature,  like  a  body  whose  breathing,  puls 
ing,  digesting,  assimilative,  and  a  hundred  other,  processes,  all 
play  into  each  other,  in  that  wonderful  reciprocity  that  makes  a 
full-toned  vital  order,  but  it  will  be  like  a  body  having  only  a 
single  function.  It  will  be  low  in  organization.  It  will  have  no 
great  consciousness  and  scarcely  any  consciousness  at  all.  For 
it  has  no  relational  system  of  parts  and  offices.  The  men  are 
repetitions,  in  a  sense,  of  each  other,  and  society  is  cotton,  or 
wheat,  all  through  —  nothing  more.  Mind  is  dull,  impulse  mor 
bid  and  unreliable.  There  is  no  great  feeling,  nothing  to  make 
either  a  history  of,  or  a  man.  Living  thus  a  thousand  years,  the 
nation  becomes  nothing  better  than  a  provincial  country  a 
thousand  years  old.  Could  they  now  sell  out  all  the  great  gains, 
made  by  their  wise  trading  economy,  and  buy,  for  such  a  price, 
the  dear,  deep  public  love  that  belongs  to  a  people  duly  mani 
folded  in  then*  works  and  productive  arts,  the  rich  gifts  of  feeling 
and  sentiment,  the  ennobled  state-consciousness,  out  of  which 
spring  the  soldiers  and  heroes,  the  orators  and  poets,  and  the 
great  days  of  a  great  people,  it  would  be  just  the  wisest  trade 
and  best  economy  they  have  ever  known  —  best,  I  mean,  not 
only  for  the  character  it  would  bring,  but  for  their  creative  energy 
and  even  for  the  total,  at  last,  of  their  wealth  itself.  Nay,  if  they 
would  only  march  disgustfully  out,  some  day,  leaving  all  their 
lands  and  properties  behind,  just  to  get  rid  of  their  ineffable 
commonness,  their  exodus,  for  a  purpose  so  manly  and  so  truly 
great,  would  even  beat  the  exodus  of  Moses. 

What,  then,  it  is  time  for  us  to  ask,  is  that  wealth  of  a  nation 
which  includes  its  weal,  or  solid  well-being?  that  which  is  the 
end  of  all  genuine  policy,  and  all  true  statesmanship?  It  consists, 
I  answer,  in  the  total  value  of  the  persons  of  the  people.  National 
wealth  is  personal,  not  material.  It  includes  the  natural  capacity, 
the  industry,  the  skill,  the  science,  the  bravery,  the  loyalty,  the 
moral  and  religious  worth  of  the  people.  The  wealth  of  a  nation 
is  in  the  breast  of  its  sons.  This  is  the  object  which,  accordingly 
as  it  is  advanced,  is  sure  to  bring  with  it  riches,  justice,  liberty, 


THE  TRUE  WEALTH  OR  WEAL  OF  NATIONS   7 

strength,  stability,  invincibility,  and  every  other  good;  or  which, 
being  neglected,  every  sort  of  success  and  prosperity  is  but 
accidental  and  deceitful. 

That  any  statesman  should  look  upon  the  persons  of  his  coun 
trymen  as  secondary,  in  consequence,  to  money  and  possessions; 
or  that  he  should  not  value  the  revenue  of  great  abilities  and 
other  high  qualities  that  may  be  developed  hi  them,  —  vigor, 
valor,  genius,  integrity,  —  above  any  other  possible  increase  or 
advantage,  discloses  a  sordid  view  of  state  policy,  and  reflects 
on  the  people  themselves,  in  a  manner  fit  to  be  resented.  "You 
will  confer,"  says  Epictetus,  "the  greatest  benefit  on  your  city, 
not  by  raising  the  roofs,  but  by  exalting  the  souls  of  your  fellow- 
citizens;  for  it  is  better  that  great  souls  should  live  in  small  habi 
tations,  than  that  abject  slaves  should  burrow  in  great  houses." 
It  is  not  difficult  to  feel  the  justice  of  this  noble  declaration;  for 
it  is  not  a  secret  to  any  one  of  mankind,  that  a  very  rich  man 
may  yet  be  a  very  insignificant  man,  —  nay,  that  he  must  be  so, 
if  he  has  lived  only  for  gain,  and  made  all  wisdom  to  consist  in 
economy.  To  understand  that  states  are  made  up  of  individuals, 
is  still  less  difficult.  Well  was  it  that  the  sordid  god  of  gold  and 
of  misers  was  placed  under  ground;  by  what  strange  mistake  is 
he  to  be  brought  up  now  and  installed  king  of  nations? 

The  truth,  which  I  assert,  and  which  seems  too  evident  to 
require  any  formal  argument,  is  happily  illustrated  by  reference 
to  the  Mexican  state,  as  contrasted  with  our  own.  It  was  not  a 
peaceful  band  of  emigrants  or  exiles  who  landed  there  to  find  a 
refuge,  and  a  place  to  worship  God  according  to  their  own  con 
sciences.  It  was  not  the  Saxon  blood,  nor  the  British  mind,  filled 
with  the  determinate  principles  and  lofty  images  of  freedom 
enshrined  in  the  English  tongue.  They  came  in  the  name  of  a 
proud  empire,  armed  for  conquest  and  extirpation.  The  infernal 
tragedy  of  Guatemozin  was  the  inaugural  scene  of  Mexican  jus 
tice.  They  loaded  themselves  with  gold  and  silver.  They  rioted 
in  plunder  and  spoil,  founded  nothing,  cherished  no  hope  of  lib 
erty,  practised  no  kind  of  industry  but  extortion,  erected  no 
safeguards  of  morality.  What  is  the  result?  Worthless,  or  having 
no  personal  value  in  themselves,  there  has  grown  out  of  them 
what  alone  could  grow;  a  nation  of  thriftless  anarchists  and 
intriguers,  without  money  at  the  very  mouth  of  their  mines, 


8  HORACE  BUSHNELL 

without  character  abroad  or  government  at  home,  and  with 
nothing  to  hope  for  in  the  future,  better  than  they  have  suffered 
in  the  past.  How  striking  an  example,  to  show,  that  neither  a 
fine  country  nor  floods  of  gold  and  silver,  can  make  a  nation 
great,  without  greatness  in  the  breasts  of  her  sons! 

Revert  now  to  the  simple  beginnings  of  our  founders.  They 
brought  hither,  in  their  little  ships,  not  money,  not  merchandise, 
no  array  of  armed  force,  but  they  came  freighted  with  religion, 
learning,  law,  and  the  spirit  of  men.  They  stepped  forth  upon 
the  shore,  and  a  wild  and  frowning  wilderness  received  them. 
Strong  in  God  and  their  own  heroic  patience,  they  began  their 
combat  with  danger  and  hardship.  Disease  smote  them,  but 
they  fainted  not;  famine,  but  they  feasted  on  roots  with  a  patient 
spirit.  They  built  a  house  for  God,  then  for  themselves.  They 
established  education  and  the  observance  of  a  stern  but  august 
morality,  then  legislated  for  the  smaller  purposes  of  wealth  and 
convenience.  They  gave  their  sons  to  God;  through  him,  to 
virtue;  and  through  virtue,  to  the  state.  So  they  laid  the  founda 
tions.  Soon  the  villages  began  to  smile,  churches  arose  still 
farther  in  the  depths  of  the  wilderness,  industry  multiplied  her 
hands,  colleges  were  established,  the  beginnings  of  civil  order 
completed  themselves  and  swelled  into  the  majesty  of  states. 
And  now,  behold,  the  germs  of  a  mighty  nation  are  manifest  — 
a  nation  of  law,  art,  industry,  and  power,  rushing  on  a  career  of 
expansion  never  equalled  in  the  history  of  man!  What  addition, 
we  are  now  tempted  to  ask,  could  any  amount  of  wealth  have 
made  to  the  real  force  and  value  of  these  beginnings?  Or,  having 
a  treasure  in  her  sons,  what  is  there  beside,  whether  strength, 
growth,  riches,  or  anything  desirable,  which  a  state  can  possibly 
fail  of?  Wealth  is  but  the  shadow  of  men;  and  lordship  and  vic 
tory,  it  has  been  nobly  said,  are  but  the  pages  of  justice  and 
virtue. 

But  let  us  descend,  for  a  few  moments,  to  grounds  of  mere 
economy.  Let  it  be  granted,  that  wealth  is  the  true  and  principal 
object  of  state  polity.  I  am  anxious  to  inquire,  how  wealth  is  to 
be  created,  and  especially,  in  what  form  wealth  is  to  be  accu 
mulated.  It  would  almost  seem  that  the  fancy  which  floats  so 
delightfully  before  the  minds  of  men,  in  their  pursuit  of  private 
gain,  must  throw  the  same  charm  over  national  wealth.  The 


THE   TRUE   WEALTH   OR  WEAL   OF  NATIONS         9 

state  is  to  become  prodigiously  rich,  they  seem  to  imagine, 
against  her  old  age;  and  then  she  will  be  able,  with  the  stock  laid 
in,  to  support  her  great  family  at  their  ease,  on  the  mere  interest 
of  the  money.  But  how  is  her  great  wealth  to  be  laid  up,  or  in 
what  shape?  Not  in  notes  and  bills,  certainly,  that  are  due  from 
one  to  another  within  the  nation;  for  it  adds  nothing  to  the 
wealth  of  a  family,  that  one  of  the  sons  owes  another.  Not  in 
specie;  for  gold  and  silver  are  good  for  nothing  in  themselves, 
but  only  as  they  will  buy  something  else.  And  if  they  were  con 
fined  within  the  nation,  and  not  allowed  to  purchase  articles 
from  abroad,  as  the  case  supposes,  they  would  only  pass  from 
hand  to  hand  within  the  nation,  and  the  prices  of  all  articles 
would  be  raised,  according  to  the  plenty  there  is  of  gold  and 
silver.  Silver,  perhaps,  being  as  plenty  as  iron,  a  ton  would  be 
exchanged  for  a  ton  of  iron,  and  the  man  who  owns  a  hundred 
tons  of  it,  would  have  it  piled  up  in  the  street  —  as  rich  as  he 
now  is  with  a  few  thousand  dollars,  and  no  more.  But  if  not  in 
notes  and  bills,  not  in  specie,  in  what  form  is  the  national  wealth 
to  be  laid  up?  In  a  cultivated  territory,  I  reply,  hi  dwellings, 
roads,  bridges,  manufactories,  ships,  temples,  libraries,  fortifica 
tions,  monuments;  —  things  which  add  to  the  beauty,  comfort, 
strength,  or  productiveness,  of  the  nation.  But  what  are  all 
these  things,  but  the  products  and  representatives  of  personal 
quality  and  force  in  the  people?  And  what  shall  ever  maintain 
them  in  goodkeeping  or  repair,  but  such  quality  and  force? 
Taken  together,  they  are  scarcely  more  than  a  collection  of  the 
tools  of  industry  and  production ;  and  if  a  nation,  without  appli 
cation,  or  skill,  or  such  a  state  of  morals  as  permits  the  security 
of  property,  were  to  receive  a  country  ready  furnished  with  such 
a  wealth,  the  productive  farms  would  soon  be  impoverished,  the 
towns  decayed,  the  ships  rotten,  the  stands  of  art  and  machinery 
dilapidated  and  wrecked.  Only  change  the  quality  of  the  British 
people  into  that  of  the  Mexican,  and  five  years  would  make  their 
noble  island  a  seat  of  poverty  and  desolation.  Where,  then,  is 
accumulation,  in  what  form  is  wealth  to  be  laid  up,  but  in  the 
personal  quality  and  value  of  the  people?  This  immaterial 
wealth,  too,  which  many  would  think  quite  unsubstantial  in  its 
nature,  is  really  more  imperishable  and  indestructible  by  far 
than  any  other.  There  is  never  any  amount  of  property  and 


10  HORACE  BUSHNELL 

goods  laid  up  by  a  nation,  which  the  mere  accident  of  a  war,  or 
an  unsettled  government,  may  not  destroy,  in  a  few  years,  so  as 
to  leave  the  nation  virtually  poor.  But  immaterial  values,  such 
as  native  capacity,  attachment  to  home,  knowledge,  skill,  cour 
age,  and  the  like,  are  a  stock,  which  ages  only  of  reverse  and 
declension  can  utterly  consume.  No  failure  of  commerce,  no 
famine,  no  war  and  conflagration  desolating  the  land,  no  rapacity 
of  conquest,  can  reach  these  treasures.  Time  only,  with  all  his 
legions  of  ruin,  can  slowly  master  them.  And  if,  perchance,  a 
respite  should  be  given,  they  will  suddenly  start  up  as  a  capital 
that  had  been  invisible,  and,  in  a  few  years,  fill  the  land  with  all 
its  former  opulence. 

Take  another  aspect  of  the  subject.  The  great  foe  to  wealth 
which  statesmen  have  to  contend  with,  is  dead  consumption  — 
that  which  annihilates  value  without  reproducing  it.  It  can  be 
shown,  for  example,  from  unquestionable  data,  that  fashionable 
extravagance  hi  our  people,  such  as  really  transcends  their 
means  to  a  degree  that  is  not  respectable;  theatrical  amusements, 
known  to  be  only  corrupt  and  vulgar  in  character;  together  with 
intemperate  drinking,  and  all  the  idleness,  crime,  and  pauperism, 
consequent,  have  annihilated,  since  we  began  our  history,  not 
less  than  three  or  four  times  the  total  wealth  of  the  nation.  This 
dead  consumption  is  the  great  cancer  of  destruction,  which  eats 
against  all  industry  and  production.  It  must  be  kept  out,  or  cut 
out,  or  the  flesh  must  be  more  than  supplied,  else  there  is  no 
advance  of  wealth.  Now  if  economy  is  to  furnish  the  law  of  civil 
administration,  as  according  to  current  reasonings  it  is,  let 
economy  provide  a  remedy  against  this  all-devouring  and  fatal 
consumption.  And  since  it  originates  only  in  a  corruption  of 
quality  in  the  people  —  in  a  want  of  simplicity,  temperance, 
providence,  and  good  manners  —  since  the  spendthrifts  of  the 
family  are  the  bad  sons,  let  the  statesman  take  care  not  to  edu 
cate  spendthrift  sons.  Let  him  turn  his  whole  attention  to  the 
great  subject  of  preparing  a  just,  provident,  industrious  people. 
Let  him  spare  no  possible  expense  for  this  object.  Let  him,  in 
fact,  forget  all  economy  in  his  devotion  to  higher  aims,  and  by 
that  time  he  will  be  a  consistent  and  thorough  economist. 

But  the  distribution  of  wealth  is  a  matter  of  more  consequence 
to  a  state  than  its  amount.  When  the  Roman  state  was  at  the 


THE   TRUE   WEALTH   OR   WEAL   OF   NATIONS       11 

height  of  its  wealth,  there  were  not  more  than  twenty  land 
holders  in  Italy;  the  rest  of  the  people  were  dependents  —  an 
idle,  thriftless,  profligate  race,  ripe  for  every  possible  mischief 
and  sedition.  There  could  not  be  a  more  miserable  condition  in 
any  state;  it  permitted  no  such  thing  as  character,  law,  security, 
or  domestic  comfort.  But  I  will  require  it  of  any  statesman  to 
show  how  a  more  equal  division  of  property  can  be  effected, 
without  robbery,  unless  by  means  of  intelligence,  application, 
frugality,  devotion  to  home  and  family,  in  the  breasts  of  the 
people.  Let  me  add  that  the  changes  now  rapidly  taking  place 
in  New  England,  the  broad  and  partially  hostile  distinctions 
that  begin  to  display  themselves,  are  sad  omens,  and  leave  us  no 
time  to  squander  in  merely  economical  policies. 

It  is  farther  to  be  noted,  that  the  wealth  of  a  nation  must  be 
defended,  as  well  as  constructed.  We  have  not  yet  reached  the 
day  when  mere  principles  of  equity  are  a  sufficient  bulwark  to 
nations.  Even  if  the  days  of  absolute  conquest  are  past,  there 
are  yet  a  thousand  liabilities  to  violent  encroachments  on  the 
honor  and  rights  of  a  people,  which  they  cannot  be  passive  under, 
without  sacrificing  a  national  spirit,  and  well-nigh  dissolving  the 
bonds  of  government  itself.  But  where  lies  the  strength  of  a 
nation's  defence?  In  such  things  as  money  purchases  —  ships, 
fortifications,  and  magazines  of  war?  No!  the  real  bulwarks  of  a 
nation  are  the  bodies  of  her  sons;  or,  I  should  rather  say,  the 
spirit  and  principles  of  her  sons.  They  are  public  love,  wisdom, 
and  high  command,  attachment  to  home,  and  bravery.  Courage 
is  necessary  to  the  spirit  and  true  manhood  of  a  people,  though 
pursuing  a  policy  even  of  non-resistance.  And  true  courage  is  a 
high  trait.  It  is  not  to  be  bought  with  money,  not  to  be  inspired 
by  an"occasion.  It  cannot  be  infused  into  a  mean-bred  and  sen 
sual  people.  It  is  the  brother  in  arms  of  conscious  integrity.  In 
its  highest  examples  it  is  supernatural,  and  by  faith  in  God  waxes 
valiant.  How  often  has  the  single  sentiment  of  courage  been 
worth  more  to  a  people,  in  a  merely  economical  estimate,  than 
any  possible  amount  of  treasure? 

To  seek  farther  illustration  of  a  position  so  nearly  self-evident 
as  the  one  I  advance,  would  only  reflect  suspicion  upon  it.  The 
personal  value  of  a  people  is  the  only  safe  measure  of  their  honor 
and  felicity.  Economy  holds  the  same  place  in  their  polity,  which 


12  HORACE  BUSHNELL 

it  holds  in  the  life  of  a  wise  and  great  man  —  a  subordinate 
place,  and  when  subordinate,  honorable.  But  their  highest 
treasures  as  a  state,  they  behold  in  capable  and  manly  bodies, 
just  principles,  high  sentiments,  intelligence,  and  genius.  To 
cherish  these  in  a  people,  to  provide  a  noble  succession  of  poets, 
philosophers,  lawgivers,  and  commanders,  who  shall  be  the  di 
recting  head,  and  the  nerves  of  action ;  to  compact  all  into  one 
energetic  and  stately  body  inspirited  by  public  love  —  this  is 
the  noble  study  of  true  philosophic  statesmanship.  "Alas,  sir!" 
exclaimed  Milton,  suddenly  grasping  this  whole  subject  as  with 
divine  force,  "a  commonwealth  ought  to  be  but  as  one  huge 
Christian  personage,  one  mighty  growth  and  stature  of  an  honest 
man,  as  big  and  compact  in  virtue  as  in  body;  for  look,  what  the 
grounds  and  causes  are  of  single  happiness  to  one  man,  the  same 
ye  shall  find  them  to  a  whole  state."  Here,  in  a  single  sentence, 
he  declares  the  true  idea  of  a  state,  and  of  all  just  administration. 
But  however  correct  in  theory,  such  views,  it  will  be  suspected, 
are,  after  all,  remote  and  impracticable.  How,  especially,  can 
we  hope  to  bring  our  intractable  democracy  upon  so  high  a 
ground  of  principle?  I  cannot  entirely  sympathize  with  such 
impressions.  History  clearly  indicates  the  fact,  that  republics 
are  more  ductile  than  any  other  form  of  government,  and  more 
favorable  to  the  admission  of  high-toned  principles,  and  the 
severer  maxims  of  government.  The  confederate  republics  of 
Crete,  and  the  daughter  republic  of  Sparta,  were  no  other  than 
studied  and  rigorous  systems  of  direct  personal  discipline  upon 
the  people,  in  which  wealth  and  ease  were  in  no  wise  sought,  but 
sternly  rejected.  And  in  what  monarchy,  or  even  despotism,  of 
the  world,  where  but  in  plain  republican  Rome,  the  country  of 
Cato  and  Brutus,  is  a  censor  of  manners  and  morals  to  be 
endured,  going  forth  with  his  note-book,  and  for  any  breach  of 
parental  or  filial  duty  observed,  for  seduction  of  the  youth,  for 
dishonor  in  the  field,  for  a  drinking  bout,  or  even  for  luxurious 
manners,  inflicting  a  civil  degradation  upon  the  highest  citizens 
and  magistrates?  The  beginnings,  too,  of  our  own  history,  are 
of  the  same  stern  temperament,  and  such  as  perfectly  to  sym 
pathize  with  the  highest  principles  of  government.  Indeed  I 
have  felt  it  to  be,  in  the  highest  degree,  auspicious,  that  the 
ground  I  vindicate  before  you  requires  no  revolution,  being  itself 


THE   TRUE   WEALTH   OR   WEAL  OF   NATIONS       13 

the  true  American  ground.  May  we  not  also  discover  even  now, 
in  the  worst  forms  of  radicalism  and  political  depravation  among 
us,  a  secret  elemental  force,  a  law  of  republican  feeling,  which,  if 
appealed  to  on  high  and  rigid  principles,  would  yield  a  true 
response?  We  fail  in  our  conservative  attempts,  more  because 
our  principles  are  too  low,  than  because  they  are  too  high.  A 
course  of  administration,  based  on  the  pursuit  of  wealth  alone, 
though  bad  in  principle  anywhere,  is  especially  bad  in  a  republic. 
It  is  more  congenial  to  the  splendors  and  stately  distinctions  of 
monarchy.  It  concentrates  the  whole  attention  of  the  nation 
upon  wealth.  It  requires  measures  to  be  debated  only  as  they 
bear  upon  wealth.  It  produces  thus  a  more  egregious  notion  of 
its  dignity,  continually,  both  in  the  minds  of  those  who  have  it, 
and  of  those  who  have  it  not,  and  thus  it  exasperates  every  bad 
feeling  in  a  republic,  till  it  retaliates  destruction  upon  it.  But  a 
system  of  policy,  based  on  the  high  and  impartial  principles  of 
philosophy,  one  that  respects  only  manly  bodies,  high  talents, 
great  sentiments  and  actions,  one  that  values  excellence  of  per 
son,  whether  found  in  the  palaces  of  the  rich  or  the  huts  of  the 
poor,  holding  all  gilded  idleness  and  softness  hi  the  contempt 
they  deserve  —  such  a  system  is  congenial  to  a  republic.  It 
would  have  attractions  to  our  people.  Its  philosophic  grounds, 
too,  can  be  vindicated  by  a  great  variety  of  bold  arguments,  and 
the  moral  absurdity  of  holding  wealth  in  higher  estimation  than 
personal  value,  can  be  played  out  in  the  forms  of  wit  and  satire, 
so  as  to  raise  a  voice  of  acclamation,  and  overwhelm  the  merce 
nary  system  with  utter  and  final  contempt. 

I  ought  to  say,  that  no  constitutional  change  in  our  system 
is  requisite  or  contemplated.  It  is  only  necessary  that  we  sustain 
the  distinctness  and  high  independence  of  the  state  governments. 
The  general  government  is  mainly  fiscal  and  prudential  in  its 
sphere  of  action.  The  highest  and  most  sacred  duties  belong  to 
the  individual  states.  It  is  the  exact  and  appropriate  sphere  of 
these,  to  prepare  personal  wealth  in  the  people.  They  should  be 
as  little  absorbed,  therefore,  as  possible,  in  the  spirit  and  policy 
of  the  general  government.  Each  State  should  have  the  interest, 
in  itself,  of  a  family,  a  sense  of  character  to  sustain,  a  love  of  its 
ancestors  and  its  children,  a  just  ambition  to  raise  its  quota  of 
distinguished  men,  to  be  honored  for  its  literature,  its  good  man- 


14  HORACE   BUSHNELL 

ners,  and  the  philosophic  beauty  of  its  disciplinary  institu 
tions. 

But  let  us  glance  at  some  of  the  practical  operations  of  our 
doctrine  more  particularly.  The  personal  value  of  the  people 
being  the  great  object  of  pursuit,  the  first  care  of  a  state  will  of 
course  be  to  preserve  and  ennoble  the  native  quality  or  stock  of 
its  people.  It  is  a  well-known  principle  of  physiology,  that  culti 
vation,  bodily  and  mental,  and  all  refinements  of  disposition  and 
principle  do  gradually  work,  to  increase  the  native  volume  and 
elevate  the  quality  of  a  people.  It  is  by  force  of  this  principle, 
long  operating,  that  states  occupying  a  similar  climate  have 
become  so  different  in  temperament,  talent,  and  quality  of  every 
kind.  In  this  principle,  a  field  of  promise  truly  sublime  opens  on 
the  statesmen  of  a  country.  And  yet,  I  know  not  that  more  than 
two  or  three  lawgivers  ever  made  the  ennobling  of  their  stock  a 
subject  of  practical  attention.  The  free  mingling  and  crossing 
of  races  in  the  higher  ranges  of  culture  and  character  would 
doubtless  be  a  great  benefit  to  the  stock.  But  the  constant 
importation,  as  now,  to  this  country,  of  the  lowest  orders  of 
people  from  abroad,  to  dilute  the  quality  of  our  natural  manhood, 
is  a  sad  and  beggarly  prostitution  of  the  noblest  gift  ever  con 
ferred  on  a  people.  Who  shall  respect  a  people,  who  do  not 
respect  their  own  blood?  And  how  shall  a  national  spirit,  or  any 
determinate  and  proportionate  character,  arise  out  of  so  many 
low-bred  associations  and  coarse-grained  temperaments,  im 
ported  from  every  clime?  It  was  in  keeping,  that  Pan,  who  was 
the  son  of  every  body,  was  the  ugliest  of  the  gods.  It  is  well 
known,  too,  that  vices  and  degraded  manners  have  a  sad  effect 
in  sinking  the  quality  of  a  people.  We  hear  of  one  whole  people, 
who  are  in  danger  of  dwindling  to  absolute  extinction,  by  force 
of  this  simple  cause.  And  let  the  day  but  come  to  any  people, 
when  it  is  true  that  every  man  participates  in  the  infected  blood 
of  drunkenness,  or  any  corrupt  vice,  and  it  will  be  a  people  as 
certainly  degenerate,  to  some  degree,  in  bodily  stature  and  force, 
in  mental  quickness  and  generosity.  Do  I  then  speak  of  enforc 
ing  morals  by  law?  Certainly  I  do.  Only  a  decent  respect  for 
the  blood  of  the  nation  requires  it.  But  the  punishments  declared 
against  such  vices  as  poison  the  blood  of  a  nation,  ought  to  be 
suitable;  they  ought  to  be  such  as  denote  only  contempt.  If  it 


THE   TRUE   WEALTH   OR  WEAL  OF  NATIONS      15 

would  be  too  severe,  in  the  manner  of  an  ancient  Roman  punish 
ment,  to  inclose  the  delinquent  in  a  sack,  with  some  appropriate 
animals,  and  throw  him  into  the  water,  let  him  somehow  be  made 
a  mark  for  mockery  and  derision.  But  let  there  be  no  appearance 
of  austerity  in  the  laws  against  vice.  Let  cheerful  and  happy 
amusements  be  provided,  at  the  public  expense.  Let  the  youth 
be  exercised  in  feats  of  agility  and  grace,  in  rowing  and  the 
spirited  art  of  horsemanship.  Erect  monuments  and  fountains, 
adorn  public  walks  and  squares,  arrange  ornamental  and  scien 
tific  gardens,  institute  festivals  and  games  for  the  contest  of 
youth  and  manhood  in  practical  invention,  in  poetry,  philosophy, 
and  bodily  prowess.  Provide  ways  and  means,  go  to  any  expense, 
to  enliven  the  state  and  make  the  people  happy,  without  low 
and  vulgar  pleasures.  The  sums  now  expended,  every  year,  in  a 
single  article  of  appetite  and  of  dead  consumption,  would  defray 
every  expense  of  this  kind.  In  the  same  view,  great  cities  will 
not  be  specially  desired,  and  all  confined  employments  will  be 
obviated,  as  far  as  possible.  For  it  is  not  in  great  cities,  nor  in 
the  confined  shops  of  trade,  but  principally  in  agriculture,  that 
the  best  stock  or  staple  of  men  is  grown.  It  is  in  the  open  air,  in 
communion  with  the  sky,  the  earth,  and  all  living  things,  that  the 
largest  inspiration  is  drunk  in,  and  the  vital  energies  of  a  real 
man  constructed.  The  modern  improvements  in  machinery  have 
facilitated  production  to  such  a  degree,  that  when  they  become 
diffused  through  the  world,  only  a  few  hands,  comparatively, 
will  be  requisite  in  the  mechanic  arts;  and  those  engaged  in  agri 
culture,  being  proportionally  more  numerous,  will  be  more  in  a 
condition  of  ease.  Here  opens  a  new  and  sublime  hope.  If  a  state 
can  maintain  the  practice  of  a  pure  morality,  and  can  unite  with 
agriculture  a  taste  for  learning  and  science,  and  the  generous 
exercises  I  have  named,  a  race  of  men  will  ultimately  be  raised 
up,  having  a  physical  volume,  a  native  majesty  and  force  of 
mind,  such  as  no  age  has  yet  produced.  Or  if  this  be  not  done,  if 
the  race  are  to  sink  down  into  idleness  and  effeminate  pleasures, 
as  production  is  facilitated,  the  great  inventions  we  prize  will 
certainly  result  hi  a  dwarfed  and  degraded  staple  of  manhood. 
Pass,  now,  from  the  subject  of  native  quality  and  capacity,  to 
that  of  personal  and  moral  improvement.  God  has  given  eyes  to 
the  body  of  man,  by  which  to  govern  his  feet  and  guide  his  other 


16  HORACE  BUSHNELL 

motions.  So  he  has  given  to  the  mind  a  regulative  eye  —  a  fac 
ulty,  whose  very  office  it  is  to  command  all  the  others.  But,  sup 
pose  some  one  to  busy  himself  in  devising  a  system  by  which  men 
shall  be  enabled  to  walk  by  the  sense  of  smell  or  of  touch.  It 
were  not  a  more  absurd  ingenuity,  than  to  attempt  a  state  policy 
which  shall  govern  men  through  their  appetites,  or  their  love  of 
gain,  or  their  mere  fears.  The  conscience  must  be  entered,  order 
and  principle  must  be  established  in  the  seat  of  the  soul's  regency; 
and  then  a  conservative  and  genial  power  will  flow  down  thence 
on  every  other  faculty  and  disposition,  every  frame  of  bodily 
habit,  every  employment  and  enterprise,  and  the  whole  body  of 
the  state  will  rise  with  invigorate  thrift  and  full  proportion  in 
every  part.  To  this  end,  a  state  must  be  grounded  in  religion. 
Though  not  established  as  a  part  of  the  political  system,  it  must  be 
virtually  incorporate  in  the  principles  and  feelings  of  the  people. 
If  it  were  possible  for  a  people  to  subsist  without  some  kind  of 
religion,  it  would  be  a  mere  subsistence  —  without  morals,  with 
out  a  true  public  enthusiasm,  without  genius,  or  an  inspired  liter 
ature.  The  highest  distinction  they  could  possibly  attain  to, 
would  be  the  advancement  of  material  philosophy.  Being  wor 
shippers  of  matter,  they  might  be  good  observers  of  matter,  but 
only  in  the  lower  and  individual  aspects  of  things;  the  Higher 
Reason,  which  dictates  all  material  forms  and  relations,  and 
dwells  in  them,  they  could  not  perceive.  "  They  that  deny  a 
God,"  says  Bacon,  "destroy  man's  nobility;  for,  certainly,  man 
is  of  kin  to  the  beasts  by  his  body,  and  if  he  be  not  of  kin  to  God 
by  his  spirit,  he  is  a  base  and  ignoble  creature.  It  destroys  like 
wise  magnanimity  and  the  raising  of  human  nature;  for  take  an 
example  of  a  dog,  and  mark  what  a  courage  and  generosity 
he  will  put  on,  when  he  finds  himself  maintained  by  a  man,  who 
to  him  is  instead  of  a  God;  which  courage  is  manifestly  such  as 
that  creature,  without  that  confidence  of  a  better  nature  than 
his  own,  could  never  attain."  This  confidence  of  a  better  nature 
is  religious  faith;  and  here  it  is  that  man  begins  to  look  beyond 
mere  sense  and  outward  fact  in  his  thoughts.  And  in  this  point 
of  view,  religion  is  seen  to  be  the  spring  of  all  genius.  Genius  is 
but  an  intellectual  faith.  It  looks  round  on  the  world  and  life, 
and  beholds  not  a  limit,  in  some  sense,  not  a  reality;  but  the 
confidence,  in  all,  of  a  better  nature.  The  forms,  colors,  and 


THE   TRUE   WEALTH   OR   WEAL   OF   NATIONS       17 

experiences  of  life,  are  not  truth  to  it,  but  only  the  imagery  of 
truth.  Boundaries  break  away,  thought  is  emancipated,  a 
mighty  inspiration  seizes  and  exalts  it;  and  what  to  others  is  fact 
and  dead  substance,  to  it  is  but  a  vast  chamber  of  spiritual 
imagery.  Colors  are  the  hues  of  thought,  forms  embody  it,  con 
trasts  hold  it  in  relief,  proportions  are  the  clothing  of  its  beauty, 
sounds  are  its  music.  Whose  the  thought  is,  its  own  reflected,  or 
God's  presented,  it  may  never  pause  to  inquire;  or  with  the 
immortal  Kepler,  it  may  exclaim,  in  the  pious  ecstasy  of  a  child 
—  O  Lord,  I  think  thy  thoughts  after  thee!  In  either  case,  the 
world  is  changed  —  it  is  no  more  the  whole,  but  only  the  sign  of 
things.  The  blank  walls  of  sense  are  become  significant,  and  a 
world  beyond  the  world  is  beheld  in  distinct  embodiment. 

Nearly  allied  to  religion,  as  a  power  ennobling  man,  is  rever 
ence  for  ancestors.  There  is  something  essentially  bad  in  a  peo 
ple  who  despise  or  do  not  honor  their  originals.  A  state  torn  from 
its  beginnings  is  fragmentary,  incapable  of  public  love,  or  of  any 
real  nationality.  No  such  people  were  ever  known  to  develop  a 
great  character.  Rome  was  not  ashamed  to  own  that  she  sprung 
of  refugees  and  robbers,  and  boasted,  in  every  age,  her  old  seer 
Numa  who  gave  her  laws  and  a  religion.  Athens  could  glory  in 
the  fiction  that  her  ancestors  were  grasshoppers,  sprung  out  of 
the  earth  as  an  original  race.  England  has  never  blushed  to  name 
her  noble  families  from  the  Danish  or  Saxon  pirates  who  de 
scended  on  her  coast.  Piety  to  God,  and  piety  to  ancestors,  are 
the  only  force  which  can  impart  an  organic  unity  and  vitality 
to  a  state.  Torn  from  the  past  and  from  God,  government  is  but 
a  dead  and  brute  machine.  Its  laws  take  hold  of  nothing  in  man 
which  responds;  they  are  only  paper  decrees,  made  by  the  men  of 
yesterday,  which  the  men  of  to-day  have  as  good  right  to  put 
under  their  feet.  What  is  it  which  gives  to  the  simple  enactment 
of  words  written  on  paper,  the  force  of  law  —  a  power  to  sway 
and  mould  a  mighty  nation?  Is  it  the  terror  of  force?  Why  does 
not  all  force  disclaim  it?  Is  it  that  some  constituted  body  of 
magistrates  enacts  it?  But  how  do  the  magistrates  themselves 
become  subject  to  it,  in  the  very  act  of  pronouncing  it,  as  if  it 
were  uttered  by  some  authority  higher  than  they?  This  is  the 
only  answer:  Law  is  uttered  by  the  National  Life  —  not  by  some 
monarch,  magistrate,  or  legislature,  of  to-day,  or  of  any  day,  but 


18  HORACE  BUSHNELL 

by  the  state;  by  that  organic  force  of  which  kings,  magistrates, 
legislatures,  of  all  times,  have  been  but  the  hands,  and  feet,  and 
living  instruments;  that  force  which  has  grown  up  from  small 
and  perilous  beginnings,  strengthened  itself  in  battles,  spoken  in 
the  voices  of  orators  and  poets,  and  been  hallowed  at  the  altars 
of  religion.  Glorious  and  auspicious  distinction  it  is,  therefore, 
that  we  have  an  ancestry,  who,  after  every  possible  deduction, 
still  overtop  the  originals  of  every  nation  of  mankind  —  men 
fit  to  be  honored  and  held  in  reverence  while  the  continent 
endures. 

I  have  not  time  to  show  in  what  way  religion  and  a  suitable 
reverence  to  ancestors  may  be  promoted  in  our  state  and  nation. 
If  only  a  due  sense  of  their  dignity  and  necessity  were  felt,  the 
means  would  not  be  difficult  to  reach.  Only  let  every  statesman, 
or  magistrate,  honor  religion  in  his  private  life;  let  him  say 
nothing,  in  his  speech  publicly,  to  reflect  on  the  sacredness  of 
religion;  make  no  appeal  to  passions  inconsistent  with  it  in  the 
people  —  by  that  time  wisdom  will  find  out  ways  to  do  all  which 
is  necessary.  So  let  every  public  man  who  has  profaned  the  ashes 
of  his  ancestors,  exulted  in  sweeping  down  their  safeguards  and 
landmarks,  and  excited  the  ignorant  people  to  a  prejudice  against 
them,  degrading  to  themselves  and  destructive  to  public  love  — 
let  him,  I  say,  cease  from  his  crime,  and  receive  better  feelings  to 
his  heart.  And  there,  in  the  place  where  Washington  sleeps,  let 
the  statesman  who  denies  a  monument  because  it  is  an  expense, 
fall  down  and  draw  from  the  hallowed  earth,  if  he  may,  some 
breath  of  justice  and  magnanimity.  Beginning  thus,  I  trust  we 
might  not  cease  till  every  spot  signalized  in  our  history  is  marked 
by  some  honorable  token  of  national  remembrance. 

There  is  not  a  nobler  office  for  a  state,  than  the  education  of 
its  youth,  or  one  more  congenial  to  a  just  ambition.  Abandoning 
the  mercenary  and  merely  economical  policy,  and  ascending  to 
higher  views,  it  will  behold  its  richest  mines  in  the  capabilities  of 
its  sons  and  daughters.  Upon  the  cultivation  of  these  it  will  con 
centrate  the  main  force  of  its  polity,  and  will  produce  to  itself  a 
glorious  revenue  of  judges,  senators,  and  commanders;  wives  to 
adorn  and  strengthen  the  spheres  of  great  men;  citizens  who  will 
make  every  scene  of  life  and  every  work  of  industry  to  smile. 
Oh!  I  blush,  for  once,  to  think  of  my  country!  It  has  gone 


THE  TRUE  WEALTH  OR   WEAL  OF  NATIONS      19 

abroad  —  we  ourselves  have  declared  —  that  we  are  an  enlight 
ened  people.  And  doubtless  a  republican  nation,  one  too  that 
has  filled  the  world  with  its  name,  must  be  a  nation  of  special 
culture.  Suppose  a  commissioner  were  sent  out  from  some  one  of 
the  venerable  kingdoms  of  the  old  world  to  examine  and  report 
upon  our  admirable  systems  of  schools.  First  of  all,  he  will  say, 
when  he  returns,  I  found  in  America  no  system  of  schools  at  all, 
and  scarcely  a  system  in  any  one  school.  I  ascertained,  that  in 
four  states  adjacent  to  each  other,  there  were  more  children 
out  of  school  than  in  all  the  kingdom  of  Prussia.  Travelling 
through  New  England,  which  is  noted  for  its  schools,  I  observed 
that  the  schoolhouses  were  the  most  comfortless  and  mean- 
looking  class  of  buildings,  placed  in  the  worst  situations,  without 
shades  or  any  attraction  to  mitigate  their  barbarity.  Into  these 
dirty  shops  of  education,  the  sons  and  daughters  are  driven  to  be 
taught.  I  found,  on  inquiry,  that  a  man,  for  example,  who  would 
give  a  cheap  sort  of  lawyer  from  ten  to  twenty  dollars  for  a  few 
hours'  service,  is  giving  the  professor  of  education  from  one  to 
two  dollars  for  a  whole  winter's  work  on  the  mind  of  his  son. 
On  the  whole,  I  found  that  the  Americans  were  very  providently 
engaged  in  planting  live-oak  timber  for  the  service  of  their  navy 
in  future  generations,  but  I  did  not  discover  that  they  had  any 
particular  concern,  just  now,  about  soldiers,  commanders,  and 
magistrates  for  the  coming  age.  The  picture  is,  alas!  too  just. 
Indeed,  the  public  are  not  altogether  insensible  to  these  things. 
I  hear  them  often  complained  of  by  those  who  do  not  seem  to 
understand  that  they  are  only  the  legitimate  fruit  of  their  own 
principles.  What  other  result  could  possibly  appear,  in  a  country 
whose  policy  itself  is  only  concerned  with  questions  of  loss  and 
gain? 

A  national  literature  consummates  and  crowns  the  greatness 
of  a  people.  The  best  actions,  indeed,  and  the  highest  personal 
virtues,  are  scarcely  possible,  till  the  inspiring  force  of  a  litera 
ture  is  felt.  There  cannot  even  be  a  high  tone  of  general  educa 
tion  without  a  literature.  A  state  must  have  its  renowned  orators 
and  senators;  the  spirit  of  its  laws  and  customs  must  be  devel 
oped  in  a  venerable  body  of  judicial  learning;  its  constitutions 
must  have  been  clothed  with  gravity  and  authority  by  the 
admiration  of  philosophers  and  wise  men;  its  beginnings,  its 


20  HORACE  BUSHNELL 

great  actions,  its  fields  of  honor,  the  names  of  its  lakes,  rivers, 
and  mountains,  must  have  been  consecrated  in  song;  then  the 
nation  becomes,  as  it  were,  conscious  of  itself,  and  one,  because 
there  is  a  spirit  in  it  which  the  men  of  every  class  and  opinion, 
nay,  the  earth  and  the  air,  participate.  But,  alas !  there  must  be 
something  of  true  manhood  and  spiritual  generosity,  to  produce 
such  a  literature.  A  mercenary  mind  is  incapable  of  true  inspira 
tion.  The  spirit  of  gain  is  not  the  spirit  of  song;  and  philosophers 
will  not  be  heard  discoursing  in  the  groves  of  paper  cities.  Be 
sides,  had  our  country  been  pursuing,  as  it  ought,  the  noble 
policy  of  producing  its  wealth  in  the  persons  of  its  people,  those 
relaxations  by  which  the  right  of  suffrage  has  been  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  unworthy,  would  never  have  been  made.  And  then, 
after  they  were  made,  our  most  cultivated  citizens  would  not 
have  withdrawn  from  their  country  so  despairingly;  they  would 
have  come  forward,  in  the  spirit  of  public  devotion,  and  contrib 
uted  all  their  energies  to  the  noble  purpose  of  making  our  whole 
people,  since  they  are  called  to  rule,  fit  to  rule.  They  would  even 
have  consoled  themselves  in  that  which  they  had  feared,  by  the 
discovery  of  a  philosophic  necessity,  that  their  country,  at  what 
ever  sacrifice,  should  be  completely  torn  from  British  types,  in 
order  to  become  a  truly  distinct  nation.  Least  of  all,  would  the 
best  talents  of  the  nation  have  lent  themselves  to  the  task  of 
soberly  reasoning  out  discouragement  to  our  institutions,  be 
cause  they  are  not  supported  by  noble  and  priestly  orders.  The 
worst  radicalism  which  our  country  has  ever  suffered,  has  been 
this,  which,  under  the  guise  of  a  sickly  and  copied  conservatism, 
has  discouraged  all  nationality,  by  demanding  for  the  state  that 
which  is  radically  opposed  to  its  fundamental  elements,  and 
which  God  and  nature  have  sternly  denied.  A  nation  must  be 
distinct,  and  must  respect  itself  as  distinct  from  all  others,  else 
it  cannot  adorn  itself  with  a  literature,  or  attain  to  any  kind  of 
excellence.  And,  in  this  view,  the  most  efficient  promoter  and 
patron  of  American  literature,  is  that  man  who  has  honored  the 
constitution  of  his  country  by  the  noble  stature  of  his  opinions 
and  his  eloquence;  who  has  stood  calm  and  self-collected  in  the 
midst  of  factious  doctrines  and  corrupt  measures  on  every  side, 
and  whose  voice  has  been  heard  in  the  darkest  hours,  speaking 
words  of  encouragement  and  hope  to  his  countrymen.  Fully 


THE   TRUE   WEALTH   OR  WEAL   OF  NATIONS      21 

impressed  with  the  grandeur  of  the  British  state  and  constitu 
tion,  and  copiously  enriched  himself  by  the  wealth  of  British 
literature,  he  has  yet  dared  to  renounce  a  state  of  cliency,  and 
be,  in  a  sense,  the  first  American.  It  is  only  needed  now,  that  a 
voice  of  faith  should  break  out  in  our  colleges  and  halls  of  learn 
ing,  and  that  our  constitutions  be  set  forth  in  their  real  grounds, 
and  vindicated  by  a  philosophy  strongly  and  truly  American,  to 
hasten  wonderfully  the  day  of  our  literature.  And  the  tokens 
are,  that  we  must  have  a  literature,  not  scholastic  or  cosmopoli 
tan,  like  that  of  Germany,  which  is  the  literature  of  leisure  and 
seclusion;  but  one  that  is  practical  and  historical,  one  that  is 
marked  by  a  distinct  nationality,  like  the  Athenian  and  the 
British ;  one,  too,  it  must  be,  of  vast  momentum  in  its  power  on 
the  world.  It  will  be  eloquence,  humor,  satire,  song,  and  phi 
losophy,  flowing  on  with  and  around  our  history.  And  as  our 
history  is  to  be  a  struggle  after  the  true  idea  and  settlement  of 
liberty,  so  our  literature  will  partake  in  the  struggle.  It  will  be 
the  American  mind  wrestling  with  itself,  to  obtain  the  true  doc 
trine  of  civil  freedom;  overwhelming  demagogues  and  factions, 
exposing  usurpations,  exploding  licentious  opinions,  involved  in 
the  fearful  questions  which  slavery  must  engender,  borne,  per 
haps,  at  times,  on  the  high  waves  of  revolution,  reclining  at 
peace  in  the  establishment  of  order  and  justice,  and  deriving 
lessons  of  wisdom  from  the  conflicts  of  experience.  As  American 
and  characteristic,  it  will  revolve  about  and  will  ever  be  attracted 
towards  one  and  the  same  great  truth,  whose  authority  it  will 
gradually  substantiate,  and,  I  trust,  will  at  length  practically 
enthrone  in  the  spirit  and  opinions  of  our  people.  This  truth  is 
none  other  than,  that  LIBERTY  is  JUSTICE  SECURED.  Establishing 
this  truth  in  a  general  and  permanent  authority,  which  I  trust  it 
may  do  in  the  very  process  of  investing  the  same  with  a  glorified 
body  in  letters,  it  will  bring  our  history  to  a  full  consummation. 
It  will  place  our  nation  on  the  same  high  platform  with  the  divine 
government,  which  knows  no  liberty  other  than  law;  and  there 
it  shall  stand  immortal,  because  it  has  found  the  rock  of  immortal 
principle. 

But  I  must  close.  I  have  detained  you  too  long,  and  yet  I  have 
only  touched  upon  a  few  points  in  this  vast  subject,  and  with 


22  HORACE   BUSHNELL 

studied  brevity.  When  I  think  of  the  amount  of  talent  assem 
bled  here,  in  this  honorable  society,  and  in  the  numerous  band  of 
young  men  preparing  here  to  act  a  part  in  their  country,  a  feeling 
of  duty  constrains  me  to  address  you  personally.  May  I  not 
hope,  that  the  principle  I  have  asserted,  approves  itself  to  the 
sober  and  serious  conviction  of  your  judgment?  And  have  you 
not  some  generous  kindlings  of  desire  and  purpose  stirring  in 
your  breasts,  that  move  you  to  be  advocates  and  champions  for 
your  country,  in  a  cause  of  so  great  honor?  Feel,  in  every  place 
and  station,  that  you  defraud  your  country,  and,  worse  than  this, 
defraud  the  honor  of  your  own  mind,  if  you  do  not  resist,  and, 
on  every  proper  occasion,  denounce  every  merely  mercenary 
scheming  policy  of  government.  Remind  your  countrymen  of 
their  persons,  and  the  nobler  wealth  of  the  mind.  A  field  is  open 
before  you,  wherein  to  win  a  just  and  holy  renown.  Be  not  afraid 
to  be  republicans.  Be  not  afraid  of  a  principle.  He  who  has  a 
principle  is  inspired.  Doubtless  there  is  some  difficulty  in  sway 
ing  the  opinions  and  prejudices  of  our  people.  But  the  worst 
impediment  truth  has  ever  had  to  complain  of,  in  our  country, 
has  been  in  its  spiritless  and  distrustful  advocates.  There  needs 
to  be  a  certain  exaltation  of  courage  and  inspired  pertinacity  in 
the  advocates  of  truth.  She  must  not  be  distrusted,  or  cloaked 
in  disguises  and  accommodations.  She  must  go  before,  in  full 
unsoiled  whiteness,  and  the  majesty  and  spirit  of  her  gait  must 
invigorate  her  followers.  Truth  is  the  daughter  of  God.  He  pos 
sessed  her  in  the  beginnings  of  his  way.  Silence  is  her  voice.  The 
charmed  orbs  hear  it  forever,  and,  following  and  revolving,  do 
but  transcribe  her  word.  The  masses  and  central  depths  also 
know  her  presence,  and  the  gems  sparkle  before  her  in  their 
secret  places.  The  buried  seeds  and  roots  inwardly  know  her, 
and  pencilling  their  flowers  and  preparing  then*  several  fra 
grances,  send  them  up  to  bloom  and  exhale  around  her.  She 
penetrates  all  things.  Not  laws,  not  bars,  nor  walls,  can  exclude 
her  goings.  Even  prejudice,  and  the  madness  of  the  people, 
which  cannot  look  upon  her  face,  do  yet  behold  her  burnished 
feet  with  secret  amazement.  Understanding,  then,  that  truth 
is  almighty,  let  us  become  her  interpreters  and  prophets.  Have 
faith  in  truth.  Install  her  in  the  affections  of  your  youth,  conse 
crate  to  her  all  your  talents,  and  the  full  vigor  of  your  lives,  and 


THE  TRUE   WEALTH  OR  WEAL  OF  NATIONS      23 

be  assured  that  she  will  in  no  wise  permit  you  to  fail;  she  will  fill 
you  with  peace  and  lead  you  to  honor. 

In  the  principles  I  have  now  asserted,  I  have  a  full  and  immu 
table  confidence.  They  are  true  principles.  They  have  power  to 
impress  themselves.  They  only  want  enthusiasm  to  worship 
them,  voices  to  speak  them,  minds  to  reason  for  them,  and  cour 
age  steadfast  and  resolute  to  maintain  them,  and  having  these 
they  cannot  fail  to  reign. 

And  in  that,  I  see  the  dawn  of  a  new  and  illustrious  vision. 
I  see  the  nation  rising  from  its  present  depression,  with  a  chas 
tened  but  good  spirit.  I  see  education  beginning  to  awake,  a 
spirit  of  sobriety  ruling  in  business  and  in  manners,  religion 
animated  in  her  heavenly  work,  a  higher  self-respect  invigorat 
ing  our  institutions,  and  the  bonds  of  our  country  strengthened 
by  a  holier  attachment.  Our  eagle  ascends  and  spreads  his  wings 
abroad  from  the  eastern  to  the  western  ocean.  A  hundred  mil 
lions  of  intelligent  and  just  people  dwell  in  his  shadow.  Churches 
are  sprinkled  throughout  the  whole  field.  The  Sabbath  sends  up 
its  holy  voice.  The  seats  of  philosophers  and  poets  are  distin 
guished  in  every  part,  and  hallowed  by  the  affections  of  the 
people.  The  fields  smile  with  agriculture.  The  streams,  and 
lakes,  and  all  the  waters  of  the  world,  bear  the  riches  of  their 
commerce.  The  people  are  elevated  in  stature,  both  mentally 
and  bodily;  they  are  happy,  orderly,  brave,  and  just,  and  the 
world  admires  one  true  example  of  greatness  in  a  people. 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

BY   RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Massachusetts,  at  Harvard  University, 
August  31,  1837 

I  GREET  you  on  the  recommencement  of  our  literary  year. 
Our  anniversary  is  one  of  hope,  and,  perhaps,  not  enough  of 
labor.  We  do  not  meet  for  games  of  strength  or  skill,  for  the 
recitation  of  histories,  tragedies,  and  odes,  like  the  ancient 
Greeks;  for  parliaments  of  love  and  poesy,  like  the  Troubadours; 
nor  for  the  advancement  of  science,  like  our  contemporaries  in 
the  British  and  European  capitals.  Thus  far,  our  holiday  has 
been  simply  a  friendly  sign  of  the  survival  of  the  love  of  letters 
amongst  a  people  too  busy  to  give  to  letters  any  more.  As  such 
it  is  precious  as  the  sign  of  an  indestructible  instinct.  Perhaps 
the  time  is  already  come  when  it  ought  to  be,  and  will  be,  some 
thing  else;  when  the  sluggard  intellect  of  this  continent  will  look 
from  under  its  iron  lids  and  fill  the  postponed  expectation  of  the 
world  with  something  better  than  the  exertions  of  mechanical 
skill.  Our  day  of  dependence,  our  long  apprenticeship  to  the 
learning  of  other  lands,  draws  to  a  close.  The  millions  that  around 
us  are  rushing  into  life,  cannot  always  be  fed  on  the  sere  re 
mains  of  foreign  harvests.  Events,  actions  arise,  that  must  be 
sung,  that  will  sing  themselves.  Who  can  doubt  that  poetry  will 
revive  and  lead  in  a  new  age,  as  the  star  in  the  constellation  Harp, 
which  now  flames  in  our  zenith,  astronomers  announce,  shall 
one  day  be  the  pole-star  for  a  thousand  years? 

In  this  hope  I  accept  the  topic  which  not  only  usage  but  the 
nature  of  our  association  seem  to  prescribe  to  this  day,  —  the 
AMERICAN  SCHOLAR.  Year  by  year  we  come  up  hither  to  read 
one  more  chapter  of  his  biography.  Let  us  inquire  what  light 
new  days  and  events  have  thrown  on  his  character  and  his  hopes. 

It  is  one  of  those  fables  which  out  of  an  unknown  antiquity 
convey  an  unlooked-for  wisdom,  that  the  gods,  in  the  beginning, 
divided  Man  into  men,  that  he  might  be  more  helpful  to  him- 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  25 

self;  just  as  the  hand  was  divided  into  fingers,  the  better  to  an 
swer  its  end. 

The  old  fable  covers  a  doctrine  ever  new  and  sublime;  that 
there  is  One  Man,  —  present  to  all  particular  men  only  partially, 
or  through  one  faculty;  and  that  you  must  take  the  whole  so 
ciety  to  find  the  whole  man.  Man  is  not  a  farmer,  or  a  profes 
sor,  or  an  engineer,  but  he  is  all.  Man  is  priest,  and  scholar,  and 
statesman,  and  producer,  and  soldier.  In  the  divided  or  social 
state  these  functions  are  parcelled  out  to  individuals,  each  of 
whom  aims  to  do  his  stint  of  the  joint  work,  whilst  each  other 
performs  his.  The  fable  implies  that  the  individual,  to  possess 
himself,  must  sometimes  return  from  his  own  labor  to  embrace 
all  the  other  laborers.  But,  unfortunately,  this  original  unit, 
this  fountain  of  power,  has  been  so  distributed  to  multitudes,  has 
been  so  minutely  subdivided  and  peddled  out,  that  it  is  spilled 
into  drops,  and  cannot  be  gathered.  The  state  of  society  is  one 
in  which  the  members  have  suffered  amputation  from  the  trunk, 
and  strut  about  so  many  walking  monsters,  —  a  good  finger,  a 
neck,  a  stomach,  an  elbow,  but  never  a  man. 

Man  is  thus  metamorphosed  into  a  thing,  into  many  things. 
The  planter,  who  is  Man  sent  out  into  the  field  to  gather  food, 
is  seldom  cheered  by  any  idea  of  the  true  dignity  of  his  ministry. 
He  sees  his  bushel  and  his  cart,  and  nothing  beyond,  and  sinks 
into  the  farmer,  instead  of  Man  on  the  farm.  The  tradesman 
scarcely  ever  gives  an  ideal  worth  to  his  work,  but  is  ridden  by 
the  routine  of  his  craft,  and  the  soul  is  subject  to  dollars.  The 
priest  becomes  a  form;  the  attorney  a  statute-book;  the  mechanic 
a  machine;  the  sailor  a  rope  of  the  ship. 

In  this  distribution  of  functions  the  scholar  is  the  delegated 
intellect.  In  the  right  state  he  is  Man  Thinking.  In  the  degener 
ate  state,  when  the  victim  of  society,  he  tends  to  become  a  mere 
thinker,  or  still  worse,  the  parrot  of  other  men's  thinking. 

In  this  view  of  him,  as  Man  Thinking,  the  theory  of  his  office 
is  contained.  Him  Nature  solicits  with  all  her  placid,  all  her 
monitory  pictures;  him  the  past  instructs;  him  the  future  invites. 
Is  not  indeed  every  man  a  student,  and  do  not  all  things  exist 
for  the  student's  behoof?  And,  finally,  is  not  the  true  scholar  the 
only  true  master?  But  the  old  oracle  said,  "All  things  have 
two  handles:  beware  of  the  wrong  one."  In  life,  too  often,  the 


26  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

scholar  errs  with  mankind  and  forfeits  his  privilege.  Let  us  see 
him  in  his  school,  and  consider  him  in  reference  to  the  main 
influences  he  receives. 

I.  The  first  in  time  and  the  first  in  importance  of  the  influences 
upon  the  mind  is  that  of  nature.  Every  day,  the  sun;  and,  after 
sunset,  Night  and  her  stars.  Ever  the  winds  blow;  ever  the  grass 
grows.  Every  day,  men  and  women,  conversing,  beholding  and 
beholden.  The  scholar  is  he  of  all  men  whom  this  spectacle  most 
engages.  He  must  settle  its  value  in  his  mind.  What  is  nature 
to  him?  There  is  never  a  beginning,  there  is  never  an  end,  to  the 
inexplicable  continuity  of  this  web  of  God,  but  always  circular 
power  returning  into  itself.  Therein  it  resembles  his  own  spirit, 
whose  beginning,  whose  ending,  he  never  can  find,  —  so  entire, 
so  boundless.  Far  too  as  her  splendors  shine,  system  on  system 
shooting  like  rays,  upward,  downward,  without  centre,  with 
out  circumference,  —  in  the  mass  and  in  the  particle,  Nature 
hastens  to  render  account  of  herself  to  the  mind.  Classification 
begins.  To  the  young  mind  every  thing  is  individual,  stands  by 
itself.  By  and  by,  it  finds  how  to  join  two  things  and  see  in  them 
one  nature;  then  three,  then  three  thousand;  and  so,  tyrannized 
over  by  its  own  unifying  instinct,  it  goes  on  tying  things  together, 
diminishing  anomalies,  discovering  roots  running  under  ground 
whereby  contrary  and  remote  things  cohere  and  flower  out  from 
one  stem.  It  presently  learns  that  since  the  dawn  of  history  there 
has  been  a  constant  accumulation  and  classifying  of  facts.  But 
what  is  classification  but  the  perceiving  that  these  objects  are 
not  chaotic,  and  are  not  foreign,  but  have  a  law  which  is  also  a 
law  of  the  human  mind?  The  astronomer  discovers  that  geome 
try,  a  pure  abstraction  of  the  human  mind,  is  the  measure  of  plan 
etary  motion.  The  chemist  finds  proportions  and  intelligible 
method  throughout  matter;  and  science  is  nothing  but  the  find 
ing  of  analogy,  identity,  in  the  most  remote  parts.  The  ambi 
tious  soul  sits  down  before  each  refractory  fact;  one  after  another 
reduces  all  strange  constitutions,  all  new  powers,  to  their  class 
and  their  law,  and  goes  on  forever  to  animate  the  last  fibre  of 
organization,  the  outskirts  of  nature,  by  insight. 

Thus  to  him,  to  this  school-boy  under  the  bending  dome  of 
day,  is  suggested  that  he  and  it  proceed  from  one  root;  one  is 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  & 

leaf  and  one  is  flower;  relation,  sympathy,  stirring  in  every  vein. 
And  what  is  that  root?  Is  not  that  the  soul  of  his  soul?  A  thought 
too  bold;  a  dream  too  wild.  Yet  when  this  spiritual  light  shall 
have  revealed  the  law  of  more  earthly  natures,  —  when  he  has 
learned  to  worship  the  soul,  and  to  see  that  the  natural  philo 
sophy  that  now  is,  is  only  the  first  gropings  of  its  gigantic  hand, 
he  shall  look  forward  to  an  ever  expanding  knowledge  as  to  a 
becoming  creator.  He  shall  see  that  nature  is  the  opposite  of  the 
soul,  answering  to  it  part  for  part.  One  is  seal  and  one  is  print. 
Its  beauty  is  the  beauty  of  his  own  mind.  Its  laws  are  the  laws 
of  his  own  mind.  Nature  then  becomes  to  him  the  measure  of 
his  attainments.  So  much  of  nature  as  he  is  ignorant  of,  so  much 
of  his  own  mind  does  he  not  yet  possess.  And,  in  fine,  the  ancient 
precept,  "Know  thyself,"  and  the  modern  precept,  "Study 
nature,"  become  at  last  one  maxim. 

/  A 

II.  The  next  great  influence  into  the  spirit  of  the  scholar  is 
the  mind  of  the  Past,  —  in  whatever  form,  whether  of  literature, 
of  art,  of  institutions,  that  mind  is  inscribed.  Books  are  the  best 
type  of  the  influence  of  the  past,  and  perhaps  we  shall  get  at  the 
truth,  —  learn  the  amount  of  this  influence  more  conveniently, 
—  by  considering  their  value  alone. 

The  theory  of  books  is  noble.  The  scholar  of  the  first  age  re 
ceived  into  him  the  world  around;  brooded  thereon;  gave  it  the 
new  arrangement  of  his  own  mind,  and  uttered  it  again.  It  came 
into  him  life;  it  went  out  from  him  truth.  It  came  to  him  short 
lived  actions;  it  went  out  from  him  immortal  thoughts.  It  came 
to  him  business;  it  went  from  him  poetry.  It  was  dead  fact;  now, 
it  is  quick  thought.  It  can  stand,  and  it  can  go.  It  now  endures, 
it  now  flies,  it  now  inspires.  Precisely  in  proportion  to  the  depth 
of  mind  from  which  it  issued,  so  high  does  it  soar,  so  long  does  it 
sing. 

Or,  I  might  say,  it  depends  on  how  far  the  process  had  gone, 
of  transmuting  Me  into  truth.  In  proportion  to  the  complete 
ness  of  the  distillation,  so  will  the  purity  and  imperishableness 
of  the  product  be.  But  none  is  quite  perfect.  As  no  air-pump  can 
by  any  means  make  a  perfect  vacuum,  so  neither  can  any  artist 
entirely  exclude  the  conventional,  the  local,  the  perishable  from 
his  book,  or  write  a  book  of  pure  thought,  that  shall  be  as  efli- 


28  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

cient,  in  all  respects,  to  a  remote  posterity,  as  to  contemporaries, 
or  rather  to  the  second  age.  Each  age,  it  is  found,  must  write  its 
own  books;  or  rather,  each  generation  for  the  next  succeeding. 
The  books  of  an  older  period  will  not  fit  this. 

Yet  hence  arises  a  grave  mischief.  The  sacredness  which  at 
taches  to  the  act  of  creation,  the  act  of  thought,  is  transferred 
to  the  record.  The  poet  chanting  was  felt  to  be  a  divine  man: 
henceforth  the  chant  is  divine  also.  The  writer  was  a  just  and 
wise  spirit:  henceforward  it  is  settled  the  book  is  perfect;  as  love 
of  the  hero  corrupts  into  worship  of  his  statue.  Instantly  the 
book  becomes  noxious :  the  guide  is  a  tyrant.  The  sluggish  and 
perverted  mind  of  the  multitude,  slow  to  open  to  the  incursions 
/of  Reason,  having  once  so  opened,  having  once  received  this 
/  book  stands  upon  it,  and  makes  an  outcry  if  it  is  disparaged. 
If  Colleges  are  built  on  it.  Books  are  written  on  it  by  thinkers,  not 
I  by  Man  Thinking;  by  men  of  talent,  that  is,  who  start  wrong, 
/  who  set  out  from  accepted  dogmas,  not  from  their  own  sight  of 
|\  principles.  Meek  young  men  grow  up  in  libraries,  believing  it 
their  duty  to  accept  the  views  which  Cicero,  which  Locke,  which 
Bacon,  have  given;  forgetful  that  Cicero,  Locke,  and  Bacon 
were  only  young  men  in  libraries  when  they  wrote  these  books. 

Hence,  instead  of  Man  Thinking,  we  have  the  bookworm. 
Hence  the  book-learned  class,  who  value  books,  as  such;  not  as 
related  to  nature  and  the  human  constitution,  but  as  making  a 
sort  of  Third  Estate  with  the  world  and  the  soul.  Hence  the 
restorers  of  readings,  the  emendators,  the  bibliomaniacs  of  all 
degrees. 

Books  are  the  best  of  things,  well  used;  abused,  among  the 
worst.  What  is  the  right  use?  WTiat  is  the  one  end  which  all 
means  go  to  effect?  They  are  for  nothing  but  to  inspire.  I  had 
better  never  see  a  book  than  to  be  warped  by  its  attraction  clean 
out  of  my  own  orbit,  and  made  a  satellite  instead  of  a  system. 
The  one  thing  in  the  world,  of  value,  is  the  active  soul.  This 
every  man  is  entitled  to;  this  every  man  contains  within  him, 
although  in  almost  all  men  obstructed,  and  as  yet  unborn.  The 
soul  active  sees  absolute  truth  and  utters  truth,  or  creates.  In 
this  action  it  is  genius;  not  the  privilege  of  here  and  there  a  favor- 
\  ite,  but  the  sound  estate  of  every  man.  In  its  essence  it  is  pro 
gressive.  The  book,  the  college,  the  school  of  art,  the  institution 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  29 

of  any  kind,  stop  with  some  past  utterance  of  genius.  This  13 
good,  say  they,  —  let  us  hold  by  this.  (They  phi  me  down.  They 
look  backward  and  not  forward.  But  genius  looks  forward:  the 
eyes  of  man  are  set  in  his  forehead,  not  hi  his  hindhead:  man  ) 
hopes:  genius  creates.  Whatever  talents  may  be,  if  the  man  ere-  / 
ate  not,  the  pure  efflux  of  the  Deity  is  not  his;  —  cinders  ana 
smoke  there  may  be,  but  not  yet  flame.  There  are  creative  man 
ners,  there  are  creative  actions,  and  creative  words;  manners, 
actions,  words,  that  is,  indicative  of  no  custom  or  authority,  but 
springing  spontaneous  from  the  mind's  own  sense  of  good  and 
fair. 

On  the  other  part,  instead  of  being  its  own  seer,  let  it  receive 
from  another  mind  its  truth,  though  it  were  in  torrents  of  light, 
without  periods  of  solitude,  inquest,  and  self-recovery,  and  a 
fatal  disservice  is  done.  Genius  is  always  sufficiently  the  enemy 
of  genius  by  over-influence.  The  literature  of  every  nation  bears 
me  witness.  The  English  dramatic  poets  have  Shakespearized 
now  for  two  hundred  years. 

Undoubtedly  there  is  a  right  way  of  reading,  so  it  be  sternly 
subordinated.  Man  Thinking  must  not  be  subdued  by  his  in 
struments.  Books  are  for  the  scholar's  idle  times.  When  he  can 
read  God  directly,  the  hour  is  too  precious  to  be  wasted  in  other 
men's  transcripts  of  then*  readings.  But  when  the  intervals  of 
darkness  come,  as  come  they  must,  —  when  the  sun  is  hid  and 
the  stars  withdraw  their  shining,  —  we  repair  to  the  lamps  which 
were  kindled  by  their  ray,  to  guide  our  steps  to  the  East  again, 
where  the  dawn  is.  We  hear,  that  we  may  speak.  The  Arabian 
proverb  says,  "A  fig  tree,  looking  on  a  fig  tree,  becometh  fruit 
ful." 

It  is  remarkable,  the  character  of  the  pleasure  we  derive  from 
the  best  books.  They  impress  us  with  the  conviction  that  one 
nature  wrote  and  the  same  reads.  We  read  the  verses  of  one  of 
the  great  English  poets,  of  Chaucer,  of  Marvell,  of  Dry  den,  with 
the  most  modern  joy,  —  with  a  pleasure,  I  mean,  which  is  in 
great  part  caused  by  the  abstraction  of  all  time  from  their  verses. 
There  is  some  awe  mixed  with  the  joy  of  our  surprise,  when  this 
poet,  who  lived  in  some  past  world,  two  or  three  hundred  years 
ago,  says  that  which  lies  close  to  my  own  soul,  that  which  I  also 
had  well-nigh  thought  and  said.  But  for  the  evidence  thence 


30  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

afforded  to  the  philosophical  doctrine  of  the  identity  of  all  minds, 
we  should  suppose  some  preestablished  harmony,  some  fore 
sight  of  souls  that  were  to  be,  and  some  preparation  of  stores 
for  their  future  wants,  like  the  fact  observed  in  insects,  who 
lay  up  food  before  death  for  the  young  grub  they  shall  never 
see. 

I  would  not  be  hurried  by  any  love  of  system,  by  any  exaggera 
tion  of  instincts,  to  underrate  the  Book.  We  all  know,  that  as 
the  human  body  can  be  nourished  on  any  food,  though  it  were 
boiled  grass  and  the  broth  of  shoes,  so  the  human  mind  can  be 
fed  by  any  knowledge.  And  great  and  heroic  men  have  existed 
who  had  almost  no  other  information  than  by  the  printed  page. 
I  only  would  say  that  it  needs  a  strong  head  to  bear  that  diet. 
One  must  be  an  inventor  to  read  well.  As  the  proverb  says,  "  He 
that  would  bring  home  the  wealth  of  the  Indies,  must  carry  out 
the  wealth  of  the  Indies."  There  is  then  creative  reading  as  well 
as  creative  writing.  When  the  mind  is  braced  by  labor  and  in 
vention,  the  page  of  whatever  book  we  read  becomes  luminous 
with  manifold  allusion.  Every  sentence  is  doubly  significant, 
and  the  sense  of  our  author  is  as  broad  as  the  world.  We  then 
see,  what  is  always  true,  that  as  the  seer's  hour  of  vision  is  short 
and  rare  among  heavy  days  and  months,  so  is  its  record,  per 
chance,  the  least  part  of  his  volume.  The  discerning  will  read, 
in  his  Plato  or  Shakespeare,  only  that  least  part,  —  only  the 
authentic  utterances  of  the  oracle;  —  all  the  rest  he  rejects, 
were  it  never  so  many  times  Plato's  and  Shakespeare's. 

Of  course  there  is  a  portion  of  reading  quite  indispensable 
to  a  wise  man.  History  and  <»™*-ii.s™'<mpp  he  must  learn  by  labo 
rious  reading. ^Colleges,  in  like  nunmer,  have  their  indispensable 
office,  —  to  teach  elements.  But  they  can  only  highly  serve  us 
when  they  aim  not  to  drill,  but  to  create;  when  they  gather  from 
far  every  ray  of  Various  genius  to  their  hospitable  halls,  and  by 
the  concentrated  fires,  set  the  hearts  of  their  youth  on  flame. 
Thought  and  knowledge  are  natures  in  which  apparatus  and 
pretension  avail  nothing.  Gowns  and  pecuniary  foundations, 
though  of  towns  of  gold,  can  never  countervail  the  least  sentence 
or  syllable  of  wit.  Forget  this,  and  our  American  colleges  will 
recede  in  their  public  importance,  whilst  they  grow  richer  every 
year. 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  31 

There  goes  in  the  world  a  notion  that  the  scholar  should 
^reclusex  a  valetudinarian,  —  as  unfit  for  any  handiwork  or 
public  labor  as  a  penknife  for  an  axe.  The  so-called  "practical 
men"  sneer  at  speculative  men,  as  if,  because  they  speculate 
or  see,  they  could  do  nothing.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  the  clergy, 
—  who  are  always,  more  universally  than  any  other  class,  the 
scholars  of  their  day,  —  are  addressed  as  women;  that  the  rough, 
spontaneous  conversation  of  men  they  do  not  hear,  but  only  a 
mincing  and  diluted  speech.  They  are  often  virtually  disfran 
chised;  and  indeed  there  are  advocates  for  their  celibacy.  As 
far  as  this  is  true  of  the  studious  classes,  it  is  not  just  and  wise. 
Action  is  with  the  scholar  subordinate,  but  it  is  essential.  With 
out  it  he  is  not  yet  man.  Without  it  thought  can  never  ripen 
into  truth.  WTiilst  the  world  hangs  before  the  eye  as  a  cloud 
of  beauty,  we  cannot  even  see  its  beauty.  Inaction  is  cowardice, 
but  there  can  be  no  scholar  without  the  heroic  mind.  The  pre 
amble  of  thought,  the  transition  through  which  it  passes  from 
the  unconscious  to  the  conscious,  is  action.  Only  so  much  do  I 
know,  as  I  have  lived.  Instantly  we  know  whose  words  are 
loaded  with  life,  and  whose  not. 

The  world,  —  this  shadow  of  the  soul,  or  other  me,  lies  wide 
around.  Its  attractions  are  the  keys  which  unlock  my  thoughts 
and  make  me  acquainted  with  myself.  I  run  eagerly  into  this 
resounding  tumult.  I  grasp  the  hands  of  those  next  me,  and 
take  my  place  in  the  ring  to  suffer  and  to  work,  taught  by  an 
instinct  that  so  shall  the  dumb  abyss  be  vocal  with  speech.  I 
pierce  its  order;  I  dissipate  its  fear;  I  dispose  of  it  within  the  cir 
cuit  of  my  expanding  life.  So  much  only  of  life  as  I  know  by 
experience,  so  much  of  the  wilderness  have  I  vanquished  and 
planted,  or  so  far  have  I  extended  my  being,  my  dominion.  I 
do  not  see  how  any  man  can  afford,  for  the  sake  of  his  nerves  and 
his  nap,  to  spare  any  action  hi  which  he  can  partake.  It  is  pearls 
and  rubies  to  his  discourse.  Drudgery,  calamity,  exasperation, 
want,  are  instructors  in  eloquence  and  wisdom.  The  true  scholar 
grudges  every  opportunity  of  action  passed  by,  as  a  loss  of  power. 

It  is  the  raw  material  out  of  which  the  intellect  moulds  her 
splendid  products.  A  strange  process  too,  this  by  which  expe 
rience  is  converted  into  thought,  as  a  mulberry  leaf  is  converted 
into  satin.  The  manufacture  goes  forward  at  all  hours. 


32  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

The  actions  and  events  of  our  childhood  and  youth  are  now 
matters  of  calmest  observation.  They  lie  like  fair  pictures  in  the 
air.  Not  so  with  our  recent  actions,  —  with  the  business  which 
we  now  have  in  hand.  On  this  we  are  quite  unable  to  speculate. 
Our  affections  as  yet  circulate  through  it.  We  no  more  feel  or 
know  it  than  we  feel  the  feet,  or  the  hand,  or  the  brain  of  our 
body.  The  new  deed  is  yet  a  part  of  life,  —  remains  for  a  time 
immersed  in  our  unconscious  life.  In  some  contemplative  hour 
it  detaches  itself  from  the  life  like  a  ripe  fruit,  to  become  a 
thought  of  the  mind.  Instantly  it  is  raised,  transfigured;  the 
corruptible  has  put  on  incorruption.  Henceforth  it  is  an  object 
of  beauty,  however  base  its  origin  and  neighborhood.  Observe 
too  the  impossibility  of  antedating  this  act.  In  its  grub  state,  it 
cannot  fly,  it  cannot  shine,  it  is  a  dull  grub.  But  suddenly,  with 
out  observation,  the  selfsame  thing  unfurls  beautiful  wings,  and  is 
an  angel  of  wisdom.  So  is  there  no  fact,  no  event,  in  our  private 
history,  which  shall  not,  sooner  or  later,  lose  its  adhesive,  inert 
form,  and  astonish  us  by  soaring  from  our  body  into  the  empy 
rean.  Cradle  and  infancy,  school  and  playground,  the  fear  of 
boys,  and  dogs,  and  ferules,  the  love  of  little  maids  and  berries, 
and  many  another  fact  that  once  filled  the  whole  sky,  are  gone 
already;  friend  and  relative,  profession  and  party,  town  and 
country,  nation  and  world,  must  also  soar  and  sing. 

Of  course,  he  who  has  put  forth  his  total  strength  in  fit  actions 
has  the  richest  return  of  wisdom.  I  will  not  shut  myself  out  of 
this  globe  of  action,  and  transplant  an  oak  into  a  flower-pot, 
there  to  hunger  and  pine;  nor  trust  the  revenue  of  some  single 
faculty,  and  exhaust  one  vein  of  thought,  much  like  those  Savoy 
ards,  who,  getting  their  livelihood  by  carving  shepherds,  shep 
herdesses,  and  smoking  Dutchmen,  for  all  Europe,  went  out  one 
day  to  the  mountain  to  find  stock,  and  discovered  that  they 
had  whittled  up  the  last  of  their  pine-trees.  Authors  we  have, 
in  numbers,  who  have  written  out  their  vein,  and  who,  moved 
by  a  commendable  prudence,  sail  for  Greece  or  Palestine,  follow 
the  trapper  into  the  prairie,  or  ramble  round  Algiers,  to  replen 
ish  their  merchantable  stock.' 

If  it  were  only  for  a  vocabulary,  the  scholar  would  be  covetous 
of  action.  Life  is  our  dictionary.  Years  are  well  spent  in  coun 
try  labors;  in  town;  in  the  insight  into  trades  and  manufactures; 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  33 

in  frank  intercourse  with  many  men  and  women;  in  science;  in 
art;  to  the  one  end  of  mastering  in  all  their  facts  a  language  by 
which  to  illustrate  and  embody  our  perceptions.  I  learn  imme 
diately  from  any  speaker  how  much  he  has  already  lived,  through 
the  poverty  or  the  splendor  of  his  speech.  Life  lies  behind  us  as  the 
quarry  from  whence  we  get  tiles  and  copestones  for  the  masonry 
of  to-day.  This  is  the  way  to  learn  grammar.  Colleges  and  books 
only  copy  the  language  which  the  field  and  the  work-yard  made. 

But  the  final  value  of  action,  like  that  of  books,  and  better 
than  books,  is  that  it  is  a  resource.  That  great  principle  of  Un 
dulation  in  nature,  that  shows  itself  in  the  inspiring  and  expir 
ing  of  the  breath;  in  desire  and  satiety;  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of 
the  sea;  in  day  and  night;  in  heat  and  cold;  and,  as  yet  more 
deeply  ingrained  in  every  atom  and  every  fluid,  is  known  to  us 
under  the  name  of  Polarity,  —  these  "fits  of  easy  transmission 
and  reflection,"  as  Newton  called  them,  —  are  the  law  of  na 
ture  because  they  are  the  law  of  spirit. 

The  mind  now  thinks,  now  acts,  and  each  fit  reproduces  the 
other.  When  the  artist  has  exhausted  his  materials,  when  the 
fancy  no  longer  paints,  when  thoughts  are  no  longer  apprehended 
and  books  are  a  weariness,  —  he  hasyalways  the  resource  to  live. 
Character  is  higher  thanxintellect.f  Thinking  is  the  function. 
Living  is  the  functionary.)  The  stream  retreats  to  its  source. 
A  great  soul  will  be  strong  to  live,  as  well  as  strong  to  think. 
Does  he  lack  organ  or  medium  to  impart  his  truth?  He  can  still 
fall  back  on  this  elemental  force  of  living  them.  This  is  a  total 
act.  Thinking  is  a  partial  act.  Let  the  grandeur  of  justice  shine 
in  his  affairs.  Let  the  beauty  of  affection  cheer  his  lowly  roof. 
Those  "far  from  fame,"  who  dwell  and  act  with  him,  will  feel 
the  force  of  his  constitution  in  the  doings  and  passages  of  the 
day  better  than  it  can  be  measured  by  any  public  and  designed 
display.  Time  shall  teach  him  that  the  scholar  loses  no  hour 
which  the  man  lives.  Herein  he  unfolds  the  sacred  germ  of  his 
instinct,  screened  from  influence.  What  is  lost  in  seemliness 
is  gained  in  strength.  Not  out  of  those  on  whom  systems  of 
education  have  exhausted  their  culture,  comes  the  helpful  giant 
to  destroy  the  old  or  to  build  the  new,  but  out  of  unhandselled 
savage  nature;  out  of  terrible  Druids  and  Berserkers  come  at 
last  Alfred  and  Shakespeare. 


34  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

I  hear  therefore  with  joy  whatever  is  beginning  to  be  said 
of  the  dignity  and  necessity  of  labor  to  every  citizen.  There 
is  virtue  yet  in  the  hoe  and  the  spade,  for  learned  as  well  as  for 
unlearned  hands.  And  labor  is  everywhere  welcome;  always 
we  are  invited  to  work;  only  be  this  limitation  observed,  that  a 
man  shall  not  for  the  sake  of  wider  activity  sacrifice  any  opinion 
to  the  popular  judgments  and  modes  of  action. 

I  have  now  spoken  of  the  education  of  the  scholar  by  nature,  by 
books,  and  by  action.  It  remains  to  say  somewhat  of  his  duties. 

They  are  such  as  become  Man  Thinking.  They  may  all  be 
comprised  in  self -trust.  The  office  of  the  scholar  is  to  cheer,  to 
raise,  and  to  guide  men  by  showing  them  facts  amidst  appear 
ances.  He  plies  the  slow,  unhonored,  and  unpaid  task  of  obser 
vation.  Flamsteed  and  Herschel,  in  their  glazed  observatories, 
may  catalogue  the  stars  with  the  praise  of  all  men,  and  the  re 
sults  being  splendid  and  useful,  honor  is  sure.  But  he,  in  his 
private  observatory,  cataloguing  obscure  and  nebulous  stars  of 
the  human  mind,  which  as  yet  no  man  has  thought  of  as  such,  — 
watching  days  and  months  sometimes  for  a  few  facts ;  correcting 
still  his  old  records;  —  must  relinquish  display  and  immediate 
fame.  In  the  long  period  of  his  preparation  he  must  betray  often 
an  ignorance  and  shiftlessness  in  popular  arts,  incurring  the  dis 
dain  of  the  able  who  shoulder  him  aside.  Long  he  must  stammer 
in  his  speech;  often  forego  the  living  for  the  dead.  Worse  yet, 
he  must  accept,  —  how  often!  poverty  and  solitude.  For  the 
ease  and  pleasure  of  treading  the  old  road,  accepting  the  fash 
ions,  the  education,  the  religion  of  society,  he  takes  the  cross 
of  making  his  own,  and,  of  course,  the  self -accusation,  the  faint 
heart,  the  frequent  uncertainty  and  loss  of  time,  which  are  the 
nettles  and  tangling  vines  in  the  way  of  the  self -relying  and  self- 
directed;  and  the  state  of  virtual  hostility  in  which  he  seems  to 
stand  to  society,  and  especially  to  educated  society.  For  all  this 
loss  and  scorn,  what  offset?  He  is  to  find  consolation  in  exercis 
ing  the  highest  functions  of  human  nature.  He  is  one  who  raises 
himself  from  private  considerations  and  breathes  and  lives  on 
public  and  illustrious  thoughts.  _He  is  the  world's  eye.  He  is  the 
world's  heart.  He  is  to  resist  the  vulgar  prosperity  that  retro 
grades  ever  to  barbarism,  by  preserving  and  communicating 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  35 

heroic  sentiments,  noble  biographies,  melodious  verse,  and  the 
conclusions  of  history.  Whatsoever  oracles  the  human  heart, 
in  all  emergencies,  in  all  solemn  hours,  has  uttered  as  its  com 
mentary  on  the  world  of  actions,  —  these  he  shall  receive  and 
impart.  And  whatsoever  new  verdict  Reason  from  her  inviolable 
seat  pronounces  on  the  passing  men  and  events  of  to-day,  — 
this  he  shall  hear  and  promulgate. 

These  being  his  functions,  it  becomes  him  to  feel  all  confidence 
in  himself,  and  to  defer  never  to  the^popular  cry.  He  and  he 
only  knows  the  world.  The  world  of  Uny  moment  is  the  merest 
appearance.  Some  great  decorum,  some  fetish  of  a  government, 
some  ephemeral  trade,  or  war,  or  man,  is  cried  up  by  half  man 
kind  and  cried  down  by  the  other  half,  as  if  all  depended 
on  this  particular  up  or  down.  The  odds  are  that  the  whole 
question  is  not  worth  the  poorest  thought  which  the  scholar  has 
lost  in  listening  to  the  controversy.  Let  him  not  quit  his  belief 
that  a  popgun  is  a  popgun,  though  the  ancient  and  honorable  of 
the  earth  affirm  it  to  be  the  crack  of  doom.  In  silence,  in  steadi 
ness,  in  severe  abstraction,  let  him  hold  by  himself;  add  observa 
tion  to  observation,  patient  of  neglect,  patient  of  reproach,  and 
bide  his  own  time,  —  happy  enough  if  he  can  satisfy  himself  alone 
that  this  day  he  has  seen  something  truly.  Success  treads  on 
every  right  step.  For  the  instinct  is  sure,  that  prompts  him  to 
tell  his  brother  what  he  thinks.  He  then  learns  that  in  going 
down  into  the  secrets  of  his  own  mind  he  has  descended  into  the 
secrets  of  all  minds.  He  learns  that  he  who  has  mastered  any 
law  in  his  private  thoughts,  is  master  to  that  extent  of  all  men 
whose  language  he  speaks,  and  of  all  into  whose  language  his 
own  can  be  translated.  The  poet,  in  utter  solitude  remember 
ing  his  spontaneous  thoughts  and  recording  them,  is  found  to 
have  recorded  that  which  men  in  crowded  cities  find  true  for 
them  also.  The  orator  distrusts  at  first  the  fitness  of  his  frank 
confessions,  his  want  of  knowledge  of  the  persons  he  addresses, 
until  he  finds  that  he  is  the  complement  of  his  hearers;  —  that 
they  drink  his  words  because  he  fulfils  for  them  their  own  nature; 
the  deeper  he  dives  into  his  privatest,  secretest  presentiment, 
to  his  wonder  he  finds  this  is  the  most  acceptable,  most  public, 
and  universally  true.  The  people  delight  in  it;  the  better  part 
of  every  man  feels,  This  is  my  music;  this  is  myself. 


36  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

In  self-trust  all  the  virtues  are  comprehended.  Free  should 
the  scholar  be,  —  free  and  brave.  Free  even  to  the  definition 
of  freedom,  "without  any  hindrance  that  does  not  arise  out  of  his 
own  constitution."  Brave;  for  fear  is  a  thing  which  a  scholar 
by  his  very  function  puts  behind  him.  Fear  always  springs  from 
ignorance.  It  is  a  shame  to  him  if  his  tranquillity,  amid  danger 
ous  times,  arise  from  the  presumption  that  like  children  and 
women  his  is  a  protected  class;  or  if  he  seek  a  temporary  peace 
by  the  diversion  of  his  thoughts  from  politics  or  vexed  questions, 
hiding  his  head  like  an  ostrich  in  the  flowering  bushes,  peeping 
into  microscopes,  and  turning  rhymes,  as  a  boy  whistles  to  keep 
his  courage  up.  So  is  the  danger  a  danger  still;  so  is  the  fear 
worse.  Manlike  let  him  turn  and  face  it.  Let  him  look  into  its 
eye  and  search  its  nature,  inspect  its  origin,  —  see  the  whelping 
of  this  lion,  —  which  lies  no  great  way  back;  he  will  then  find  in 
himself  a  perfect  comprehension  of  its  nature  and  extent;  he  will 
have  made  his  hands  meet  on  the  other  side,  and  can  henceforth 
defy  it  and  pass  on  superior.  The  world  is  his  who  can  see  through 
its  pretension.  What  deafness,  what  stone-blind  custom,  what 
overgrown  error  you  behold  is  there  only  by  sufferance,  —  by 
your  sufferance.  See  it  to  be  a  lie,  and  you  have  already  dealt 
it  its  mortal  blow. 

Yes,  we  are  the  cowed,  — we  the  trustless.  It  is  a  mischievous 
notion  that  we  are  come  late  into  nature;  that  the  world  was 
finished  a  long  time  ago.  As  the  world  was  plastic  and  fluid  in 
the  hands  of  God,  so  it  is  ever  to  so  much  of  his  attributes  as 
we  bring  to  it.  To  ignorance  and  sin,  it  is  flint.  They  adapt  them 
selves  to  it  as  they  may;  but  in  proportion  as  a  man  has  any 
thing  in  him  divine,  the  firmament  flows  before  him  and  takes 
his  signet  and  form.  Not  he  is  great  who  can  alter  matter,  but 
he  who  can  alter  my  state  of  mind.  They  are  the  kings  of  the 
world  who  give  the  color  of  their  present  thought  to  all  nature 
and  all  art,  and  persuade  men  by  the  cheerful  serenity  of  their 
carrying  the  matter,  that  this  thing  which  they  do  is  the  apple 
which  the  ages  have  desired  to  pluck,  now  at  last  ripe,  and  invit 
ing  nations  to  the  harvest.  The  great  man  makes  the  great  thing. 
Wherever  Macdonald  sits,  there  is  the  head  of  the  table.  Lin 
naeus  makes  botany  the  most  alluring  of  studies,  and  wins  it 
from  the  farmer  and  the  herb-woman;  Davy,  chemistry;  and 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  37 

Cuvier,  fossils.  The  day  is  always  his  who  works  in  it  with  seren 
ity  and  great  aims.  The  unstable  estimates  of  men  crowd  to 
him  whose  mind  is  filled  with  a  truth,  as  the  heaped  waves  of  the 
Atlantic  follow  the  moon. 

For  this  self -trust,  the  reason  is  deeper  than  can  be  fathomed, 
—  darker  than  can  be  enlightened.  I  might  not  carry  with  me 
the  feeling  of  my  audience  in  stating  my  own  belief.  But  I  have 
already  shown  the  ground  of  my  hope,  in  adverting  to  the  doc 
trine  that  man  is  one.  I  believe  man  has  been  wronged;  he  has 
wronged  himself.  He  has  almost  lost  the  light  that  can  lead 
him  back  to  his  prerogatives.  Men  are  become  of  no  account. 
Men  in  history,  men  in  the  world  of  to-day,  are  bugs,  are  spawn, 
and  are  called  ''the  mass"  and  "the  herd."  In  a  century,  in  a 
millennium,  one  or  two  men;  that  is  to  say,  one  or  two  approxi 
mations  to  the  right  state  of  every  man.  All  the  rest  behold  in 
the  hero  or  the  poet  their  own  green  and  crude  being,  —  ripened; 
yes,  and  are  content  to  be  less,  so  that  may  attain  to  its  full  stat 
ure.  What  a  testimony,  full  of  grandeur,  full  of  pity,  is  borne  to 
the  demands  of  his  own  nature,  by  the  poor  clansman,  the  poor 
partisan,  who  rejoices  in  the  glory  of  his  chief.  The  poor  and  the 
low  find  some  amends  to  their  immense  moral  capacity,  for 
their  acquiescence  in  a  political  and  social  inferiority.  They 
are  content  to  be  brushed  like  flies  from  the  path  of  a  great  per 
son,  so  that  justice  shall  be  done  by  him  to  that  common  nature 
which  it  is  the  dearest  desire  of  all  to  see  enlarged  and  glorified. 
They  sun  themselves  in  the  great  man's  light,  and  feel  it  to  be 
their  own  element.  They  cast  the  dignity  of  man  from  their 
downtrod  selves  upon  the  shoulders  of  a  hero,  and  will  perish 
to  add  one  drop  of  blood  to  make  that  great  heart  beat,  those 
giant  sinews  combat  and  conquer.  He  lives  for  us,  and  we  live 
in  him. 

Men  such  as  they  are,  very  naturally  seek  money  or  power ; 
and  power  because  it  is  as  good  as  money,  —  the  "spoils,"  so 
called,  "of  office."  And  why  not?  for  they  aspire  to  the  highest, 
and  this,  in  their  sleep-walking,  they  dream  is  highest.  Wake 
them  and  they  shall  quit  the  false  good  and  leap  to  the  true, 
and  leave  governments  to  clerks  and  desks.  This  revolution  is  to 
be  wrought  by  the  gradual  domestication  of  the  idea  of  Culture. 
The  main  enterprise  of  the  world  for  splendor,  for  extent,  is  the 


38  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

upbuilding  of  a  man.  Here  are  the  materials  strewn  along  the 
ground.  The  private  life  of  one  man  shall  be  a  more  illustrious 
monarchy,  more  formidable  to  its  enemy,  more  sweet  and  serene 
in  its  influence  to  its  friend,  than  any  kingdom  in  history.  For 
a  man,  rightly  viewed,  comprehendeth  the  particular  natures 
of  all  men.  Each  philosopher,  each  bard,  each  actor  has  only 
done  for  me,  as  by  a  delegate,  what  one  day  I  can  do  for  myself. 
The  books  which  once  we  valued  more  than  the  apple  of  the 
eye,  we  have  quite  exhausted.  What  is  that  but  saying  that  we 
have  come  up  with  the  point  of  view  which  the  universal  mind 
took  through  the  eyes  of  one  scribe;  we  have  been  that  man,  and 
have  passed  on.  First,  one,  then  another,  we  drain  all  cisterns, 
and  waxing  greater  by  all  these  supplies,  we  crave  a  better  and 
more  abundant  food.  The  man  has  never  lived  that  can  feed  us 
ever.  The  human  mind  cannot  be  enshrined  in  a  person  who 
shall  set  a  barrier  on  any  one  side  to  this  unbounded,  unbound- 
able  empire.  It  is  one  central  fire,  which,  flaming  now  out  of 
the  lips  of  ^Etna,  lightens  the  capes  of  Sicily,  and  now  out  of 
the  throat  of  Vesuvius,  illuminates  the  towers  and  vineyards 
of  Naples.  It  is  one  light  which  beams  out  of  a  thousand  stars. 
It  is  one  soul  which  animates  all  men. 

But  I  have  dwelt  perhaps  tediously  upon  this  abstraction  of 
the  Scholar.  I  ought  not  to  delay  longer  to  add  what  I  have  to 
say  of  nearer  reference  to  the  time  and  to  this  country. 

Historically,  there  is  thought  to  be  a  difference  in  the  ideas 
which  predominate  over  successive  epochs,  and  there  are  data 
for  marking  the  genius  of  the  Classic,  of  the  Romantic,  and  now 
of  the  Reflective  or  Philosophical  age.  With  the  views  I  have 
intimated  of  the  oneness  or  the  identity  of  the  mind  through  all 
individuals,  I  do  not  much  dwell  on  these  differences.  In  fact, 
I  believe  each  individual  passes  through  all  three.  The  boy  is 
a  Greek;  the  youth,  romantic;  the  adult,  reflective.  I  deny  not 
however  that  a  revolution  in  the  leading  idea  may  be  distinctly 
enough  traced. 

Our  age  is  bewailed  as  the  age  of  Introversion.  Must  that 
needs  be  evil?  We,  it  seems,  are  critical;  we  are  embarrassed 
with  second  thoughts;  we  cannot  enjoy  any  thing  for  hanker 
ing  to  know  whereof  the  pleasure  consists;  we  are  lined  with 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  39 

eyes;  we  see  with  our  feet;  the  time  is  infected  with  Hamlet's 
unhappiness,  — 

"  Sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought." 

It  is  so  bad  then?  Sight  is  the  last  thing  to  be  pitied.  Would 
we  be  blind?  Do  we  fear  lest  we  should  outsee  nature  and  God, 
and  drink  truth  dry?  I  look  upon  the  discontent  of  the  literary 
class  as  a  mere  announcement  of  the  fact  that  they  find  them 
selves  not  in  the  state  of  mind  of  their  fathers,  and  regret  the 
coming  state  as  untried;  as  a  boy  dreads  the  water  before  he  has 
learned  that  he  can  swim.  If  there  is  any  period  one  would 
desire  to  be  born  in,  is  it  not  the  age  of  Revolution;  when  the 
old  and  the  new  stand  side  by  side  and  admit  of  being  compared; 
when  the  energies  of  all  men  are  searched  by  fear  and  by  hope; 
when  the  historic  glories  of  the  old  can  be  compensated  by  the 
rich  possibilities  of  the  new  era?  This  time,  like  all  times,  is  a 
very  good  one,  if  we  but  know  what  to  do  with  it. 

I  read  with  some  joy  of  the  auspicious  signs  of  the  coming 
days,  as  they  glimmer  already  through  poetry  and  art,  through 
philosophy  and  science,  through  church  and  state. 

One  of  these  signs  is  the  fact  that  the  same  movement  which 
effected  the  elevation  of  what  was  called  the  lowest  class  in  the 
state,  assumed  in  literature  a  very  marked  and  as  benign  an  as 
pect.  Instead  of  the  sublime  and  beautiful,  the  near,  the  low, 
the  common,  was  explored  and  poetized.  That  which  had  been 
negligently  trodden  under  foot  by  those  who  were  harnessing 
and  provisioning  themselves  for  long  journeys  into  far  countries, 
is  suddenly  found  to  be  richer  than  all  foreign  parts.  The  litera 
ture  of  the  poor,  the  feelings  of  the  child,  the  philosophy  of  the 
street,  the  meaning  of  household  life,  are  the  topics  of  the  time. 
It  is  a  great  stride.  It  is  a  sign,  —  is  it  not?  of  new  vigor  when 
the  extremities  are  made  active,  when  currents  of  warm  life 
run  into  the  hands  and  the  feet.  I  ask  not  for  the  great,  the 
remote,  the  romantic;  what  is  doing  in  Italy  or  Arabia;  what  is 
Greek  art,  or  Proven  gal  minstrelsy;  I  embrace  the  common,  I 
explore  and  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  familiar,  the  low.  Give  me 
insight  into  to-day,  and  you  may  have  the  antique  and  future 
worlds.  What  would  we  really  know  the  meaning  of  ?  The  meal 
in  the  firkin;  the  milk  in  the  pan;  the  ballad  in  the  street;  the 


40  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

news  of  the  boat;  the  glance  of  the  eye;  the  form  and  the  gait 
of  the  body;  —  show  me  the  ultimate  reason  of  these  matters; 
show  me  the  sublime  presence  of  the  highest  spiritual  cause  lurk 
ing,  as  always  it  does  lurk,  in  these  suburbs  and  extremities  of 
nature;  let  me  see  every  trifle  bristling  with  the  polarity  that 
ranges  it  instantly  on  an  eternal  law;  and  the  shop,  the  plough, 
and  the  ledger  referred  to  the  like  cause  by  which  light  undulates 
and  poets  sing;  —  and  the  world  lies  no  longer  a  dull  miscellany 
and  lumber-room,  but  has  form  and  order;  there  is  no  trifle, 
there  is  no  puzzle,  but  one  design  unites  and  animates  the  far 
thest  pinnacle  and  the  lowest  trench. 

This  idea  has  inspired  the  genius  of  Goldsmith,  Burns,  Cow- 
per,  and,  in  a  newer  time,  of  Goethe,  Wordsworth,  and  Carlyle. 
This  idea  they  have  differently  followed  and  with  various  suc 
cess.  In  contrast  with  their  writing,  the  style  of  Pope,  of  John 
son,  of  Gibbon,  looks  cold  and  pedantic.  This  writing  is  blood- 
warm.  Man  is  surprised  to  find  that  things  near  are  not  less 
beautiful  and  wondrous  than  things  remote.  The  near  explains 
the  far.  The  drop  is  a  small  ocean.  A  man  is  related  to  all 
nature.  This  perception  of  the  worth  of  the  vulgar  is  fruitful 
in  discoveries.  Goethe,  in  this  very  thing  the  most  modern  of 
the  moderns,  has  shown  us,  as  none  ever  did,  the  genius  of  the 
ancients. 

There  is  one  man  of  genius  who  has  done  much  for  this  phi 
losophy  of  life,  whose  literary  value  has  never  yet  been  rightly 
estimated;  —  I  mean  Emanuel  Swedenborg.  The  most  imagi 
native  of  men,  yet  writing  with  the  precision  of  a  mathematician, 
he  endeavored  to  engraft  a  purely  philosophical  Ethics  on  the 
popular  Christianity  of  his  time.  Such  an  attempt  of  course 
must  have  difficulty  which  no  genius  could  surmount.  But 
he  saw  and  showed  the  connection  between  nature  and  the  affec 
tions  of  the  soul.  He  pierced  the  emblematic  or  spiritual  charac 
ter  of  the  visible,  audible,  tangible  world.  Especially  did  his 
shade-loving  muse  hover  over  and  interpret  the  lower  parts  of 
nature;  he  showed  the  mysterious  bond  that  allies  moral  evil 
to  the  foul  material  forms,  and  has  given  in  epical  parables  a 
theory  of  insanity,  of  beasts,  of  unclean  and  fearful  things. 

Another  sign  of  our  times,  also  marked  by  an  analogous  polit 
ical  movement,  is  the  new  importance  given  to  the  single  per- 


THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  41 

son.  Every  thing  that  tends  to  insulate  the  individual,  —  to 
surround  him  with  barriers  of  natural  respect,  so  that  each  man 
shall  feel  the  world  is  his,  and  man  shall  treat  with  man  as  a 
sovereign  state  with  a  sovereign  state,  —  tends  to  true  union 
as  well  as  greatness.  "I  learned,"  said  the  melancholy  Pesta- 
lozzi,  "that  no  man  in  God's  wide  earth  is  either  willing  or  able 
to  help  any  other  man."  Help  must  come  from  the  bosom  alone. 
The  scholar  is  that  man  who  must  take  up  into  himself  all  the 
ability  of  the  time,  all  the  contributions  of  the  past,  all  the  hopes 
of  the  future.  He  must  be  an  university  of  knowledges.  If  there 
be  one  lesson  more  than  another  which  should  pierce  his  ear, 
it  is,  The  world  is  nothing,  the  man  is  all;  in  yourself  is  the  law 
of  all  nature,  and  you  know  not  yet  how  a  globule  of  sap  ascends; 
in  yourself  slumbers  the  whole  of  Reason;  it  is  for  you  to  know 
all;  it  is  for  you  to  dare  all.  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen,  this 
confidence  in  the  unsearched  might  of  man  belongs,  by  all  mo 
tives,  by  all  prophecy,  by  all  preparation,  to  the  American 
Scholar.  We  have  listened  too  long  to  the  courtly  muses  of 
Europe.  The  spirit  of  the  American  freeman  is  already  suspected 
to  be  timid,  imitative,  tame.  Public  and  private  avarice  make 
the  air  we  breathe  thick  and  fat.  The  scholar  is  decent,  indo 
lent,  complaisant.  See  already  the  tragic  consequence.  The 
mind  of  this  country,  taught  to  aim  at  low  objects,  eats  upon 
itself.  There  is  no  work  for  any  but  the  decorous  and  the  com 
plaisant.  Young  men  of  the  fairest  promise,  who  begin  life  upon 
our  shores,  inflated  by  the  mountain  winds,  shined  upon  by  all 
the  stars  of  God,  find  the  earth  below  not  in  unison  with  these, 
but  are  hindered  from  action  by  the  disgust  which  the  principles 
on  which  business  is  managed  inspire,  and  turn  drudges,  or  die 
of  disgust,  some  of  them  suicides.  What  is  the  remedy?  They 
did  not  yet  see,  and  thousands  of  young  men  as  hopeful  now 
crowding  to  the  barriers  for  the  career  do  not  yet  see,  that  if  the 
single  man  plant  himself  indomitably  on  his  instincts,  and  there 
abide,  the  huge  world  will  come  round  to  him.  Patience,  —  pa 
tience;  with  the  shades  of  all  the  good  and  great  for  company; 
and  for  solace  the  perspective  of  your  own  infinite  life;  and  for 
work  the  study  and  the  communication  of  principles,  the  making 
those  instincts  prevalent,  the  conversion  of  the  world.  Is  it  not 
the  chief  disgrace  in  the  world,  not  to  be  an  unit;  —  not  to  be 


42  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

reckoned  one  character;  —  not  to  yield  that  peculiar  fruit  which 
each  man  was  created  to  bear,  but  to  be  reckoned  in  the  gross, 
in  the  hundred,  or  the  thousand,  of  the  party,  the  section,  to 
which  we  belong;  and  our  opinion  predicted  geographically,  as 
the  north,  or  the  south?  Not  so,  brothers  and  friends,  —  please 
God,  ours  shall  not  be  so.  We  will  walk  on  our  own  feet;  we  will 
work  with  our  own  hands;  we  will  speak  our  own  minds.  The 
study  of  letters  shall  be  no  longer  a  name  for  pity,  for  doubt, 
and  for  sensual  indulgence.  The  dread  of  man  and  the  love  of 
man  shall  be  a  wall  of  defence  and  a  wreath  of  joy  around  all. 
A  nation  of  men  will  for  the  first  time  exist,  because  each  be 
lieves  himself  inspired  by  the  Divine  Soul  which  also  inspires 
all  men. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  SCIENTIFIC  DISCOVERY 
AND  INVENTION  ON  SOCIAL  AND 
POLITICAL  PROGRESS 

BY  JOB  DURFEE 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Rhode  Island,  at  Brown  University,  on 
September  6, 1843. 

THE  influence  of  discovery  in  science,  and  of  invention  in  art, 
on  social  and  political  progress,  may  certainly  form  an  appro 
priate  theme  for  an  occasion  like  the  present;  and  if,  during  the 
short  time  which  has  been  left  to  us  by  the  preceding  exercises  of 
the  day,  I  should  endeavor  to  draw  your  attention  to  this  sub 
ject,  rest  assured  that  the  attempt  will  not  be  prompted  by  a 
confidence  in  any  peculiar  qualification  of  mine  for  the  task,  but 
from  a  desire,  in  some  manner,  to  fulfil  a  duty  which,  perhaps 
with  too  little  caution,  I  undertook  to  perform. 

We  are  disposed,  I  think,  to  ascribe  too  much  of  human  prog 
ress  to  particular  forms  of  government  —  to  particular  political 
institutions,  arbitrarily  established  by  the  will  of  the  ruler,  or 
wills  of  the  masses,  in  accordance  with  some  theoretic  abstrac 
tion.  And  this  is  natural  enough  in  a  country  where  popular 
opinion  makes  the  law.  But,  to  the  mind  that  has  formed  the 
habit  of  penetrating  beyond  effects  into  the  region  of  causes,  it 
may,  I  think,  appear  that  the  will  of  the  one,  or  the  wills  of  the 
many,  equally  are  under  the  dominion  of  a  higher  law  than  any 
that  they  may  ordain;  and  that  political  and  social  institutions 
are,  in  the  end,  drawn  or  constrained  to  all  their  substantial  im 
provements,  by  an  order  of  mind  still  in  advance  of  that  which 
rules  in  politics,  and  flatters  itself  that  dominion  is  all  its  own. 

If  it  be  true  that  knowledge  is  power,  then  it  would  seem  to 
follow  that  any  change  in  the  arts  or  sciences,  favorable  or 
unfavorable,  must  be  followed  by  corresponding  changes  in 
society.  And  such,  in  fact,  we  find  to  be  the  result.  When  the 
arts  and  sciences  become  stationary,  all  social  and  political  insti 
tutions  become  stationary;  when  the  arts  and  sciences  become 


44  JOB   DURFEE 

progressive,  all  social  and  political  institutions  become  progres 
sive.  The  universality  of  this  fact  clearly  demonstrates  the 
necessary  connection  of  cause  and  effect  between  scientific  and 
social  progress.  And  if  the  form  in  which  this  statement  is  made 
be  correct,  it  does  as  clearly  show  which  is  the  cause,  and  which 
the  effect,  and  that  we  are  not  to  seek  for  the  causative  energy 
of  human  progress  in  the  wisdom  of  the  political,  but  in  that  of 
the  scientific  and  inventive  mind.  Let  it  moreover  be  recollected, 
that,  at  least  in  these  our  times,  the  scientific  and  inventive 
genius  has  a  universality  which  elevates  it  above  all  human 
jurisdictions;  that  it  belongs  to  the  whole  humanity;  can  be 
monopolized  by  no  government;  and  that  its  discoveries  and 
inventions  walk  the  earth  with  the  freedom  of  God's  own 
messengers. 

This  is  an  important  position,  which  I  shall  presently  endeavor 
further  to  confirm  by  some  brief  references  to  history. 

But  though  we  may  find  the  cause  of  human  progress  in  the 
scientific  and  inventive  genius  of  the  race,  still  we  may  question 
the  extent  of  its  power  over  those  institutions  that  are  created 
and  sustained  by  the  social  or  political  will.  I  shall  ascribe  to  it, 
on  the  present  occasion,  none  but  the  power  of  ordaining  for 
those  institutions  their  only  true  law  of  progress.  It  prescribes 
to  them  no  particular  form  of  government;  but  requires  that 
every  government,  whether  in  theory  despotic  or  liberal,  should 
be  so  administered  as  to  enable  the  human  mind  to  put  forth,  in 
a  manner  consistent  with  order,  all  its  powers  for  the  benefit  of 
humanity.  It  forces  upon  government,  whatever  be  its  form,  the 
necessity  of  extending  practical  freedom  to  all.  It  requires  it, 
upon  the  penalty  of  ceasing  to  exist,  to  carry  out  to  the  utmost 
extent,  both  in  the  social  and  political  spheres,  every  important 
discovery  or  invention,  and  thus  coerces,  by  a  process  its  own, 
obedience  to  its  supreme  authority. 

But  what  is  this  progress?  It  may  be  a  short,  but  it  is  a  suffi 
cient  answer  for  the  occasion,  to  say,  that  it  is  the  elevation  of 
mind  over  matter;  in  the  material  universe  it  is  the  extension  of 
the  dominion  of  man  over  the  powers  and  forces  of  nature;  in 
humanity  it  is  the  orderly  elevation  of  the  high  moral  and  intel 
lectual  energies  over  the  brute  force  of  passion,  prejudice,  and 
ignorance. 


SCIENTIFIC  DISCOVERY  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS    45 

In  the  realm  of  science  and  art,  the  most  exalted  geniuses  and 
the  brightest  intellects  that  it  contains  are  ever  at  the  head  of 
affairs.  They  are  there,  not  by  the  appointment  of  government, 
nor  by  the  election  of  the  masses,  but  by  a  decree  of  the  supreme 
Intelligence.  And,  if  it  be  true,  as  I  hope  to  demonstrate,  that 
their  discoveries  and  inventions  rule  in  the  grand  course  of 
events,  it  will  afford  some  consolation  to  reflect,  that,  whether 
government  falls  into  the  hands  of  demagogue  or  despot  (and 
it  suffers  equally  from  either),  this  high  order  of  intellect  doth, 
after  all,  by  setting  limits  to  their  follies,  guide  and  govern  in  the 
main.  To  it  we  bow  with  deferential  awe  —  to  it  we  willingly 
own  allegiance,  and  are  proud  to  confess  ourselves  its  subjects. 

Time,  indeed,  was,  when  this  order  of  mind  formed  a  union 
with  government,  and  was  itself  despotic,  or  was  ruled  by  des 
potism.  Such  seems  to  have  been  its  condition  in  ancient  Egypt 
—  such  may  be  its  condition  still,  under  those  oriental  govern 
ments,  where  every  change  must  operate  a  social  disorganiza 
tion;  but  such,  from  the  earliest  date  of  Grecian  freedom,  has 
never  been  its  condition  in  the  sphere  of  western  civilization.  It 
has  been  subject  to  restraint,  it  has  suffered  persecution,  but  it 
has  formed  no  necessary  part  of  any  local  government.  It  has 
been  under  no  necessity  of  limiting  its  discoveries,  or  shaping  its 
inventions  to  suit  particular  political  or  social  organizations. 
At  that  early  date  it  cut  its  connection  with  these,  and,  by  so 
doing,  found  the  Archimedean  standpoint  and  lever,  by  which 
it  is  enabled  to  move  the  world. 

But  where  and  what  is  this  point  on  which  the  scientific  intel 
lect  takes  this  commanding  stand?  It  is  not  to  be  found  in  that 
space  which  can  be  measured  by  a  glance  of  the  eye,  or  a  move 
ment  of  the  hand.  It  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  world  of  mind; 
and  even  there,  only  in  that  perfect  reason  which  is  at  once  a 
law  to  humanity  and  the  revealer  of  all  truth.  It  is  a  point  which 
lies  even  beyond  the  extravagant  wish  of  Archimedes.  Perhaps 
Ire  had  unwittingly  found  it,  when  engaged  in  the  solution  of 
that  mathematical  problem  which  cost  him  his  life;  when,  whilst 
the  streets  of  Syracuse  were  thronged  with  bands  of  military 
plunderers,  and  the  Roman  soldier,  amid  shouts  of  triumph, 
entering  his  study,  placed  the  sword  at  his  throat,  he  exclaimed, 
"Hold,  friend,  one  moment,  and  my  demonstration  will  be  fin- 


46  JOB  DURFEE 

ished."  Far  elevated  above  local  interests,  far  above  the  petty 
strife  and  confusion  of  the  day,  it  is  a  point  from  whose  Olympian 
height  all  humanity  is  seen  dwindled  to  a  unit.  It  is  in  this  eleva 
tion,  above  the  world  and  its  turmoils,  that  the  scientific  phi 
losopher  interrogates  the  deity  of  truth,  and  communicates  its 
oracles  to  the  whole  nether  humanity;  confident,  that  as  they 
are  true,  whatever  may  be  their  present  effect,  they  will  ulti 
mately  promote  the  progress  of  the  race. 

Nor  is  he  at  liberty  to  abstain  from  interrogating  this  deity;  to 
refrain  from  the  efforts  to  discover,  and  consequently  to  invent, 
whenever  a  discovery  is  to  be  actualized  by  invention.  That 
law  which  prompts  the  mind  spontaneously  to  search  for  the 
cause  of  every  effect,  and  for  the  most  effectual  means  for  the 
accomplishment  of  the  end,  is  not  superinduced  by  education. 
It  comes  from  a  source  above  man ;  it  is  constitutional,  therefore 
irresistible;  and  he  makes  his  discoveries  and  inventions  because 
he  must  make  them. 

Now  the  sciences  and  arts,  comprehending  not  merely  the 
liberal  and  fine,  but  the  physical  and  useful,  consist  of  a  logical 
series  of  discoveries  and  inventions,  commenced  at  the  earliest 
date  of  human  progress  and  continued  down  to  the  present  time, 
the  last  grand  result  being  the  sum  of  all  the  labors  that  have 
gone  before  it;  nay,  not  unfrequently  the  sum  of  the  blood  and 
sufferings  of  the  ignoble  masses,  as  well  as  of  the  labors  of  the 
exalted  philosophic  mind.  I  mean  not  to  say  that  this  law  of 
reason,  which  impels  man  to  discover  and  invent,  conducts  him 
from  step  to  step,  from  truth  to  truth,  in  a  direct  line  to  the  far 
result;  for  he  has  his  liberty,  and  he  often  deviates,  not  for  a  day 
merely,  but  for  a  generation;  nay,  sometimes  for  a  wrhole  epoch. 
But,  however  widely  he  may  err,  he  at  last  discovers  the  error 
of  the  first  false  step  that  he  has  made;  his  false  premise  is 
brought  to  its  reductio  ad  dbsurdum;  and,  with  the  benefit  of  all 
the  experience,  discipline,  and  knowledge  that  he  has  acquired 
by  pursuing  it  to  this  result,  he  returns  to  the  point  of  departure, 
and,  with  redoubled  energy,  follows  out  the  demonstration 
direct,  to  its  quod  erat  demonstrandum. 

Gentlemen,  excuse  me,  whilst  on  an  occasion  so  purely  liter 
ary,  I  draw  an  illustration  of  this  idea  from  a  thought  suggested 
by  an  invention  in  a  branch  of  mechanic  art. 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY  AND   SOCIAL   PROGRESS     47 

I  lately  visited  an  establishment,  perhaps  in  some  respects  the 
first  of  the  kind  in  our  country,  for  the  manufacture  of  iron  into 
bars.  I  stood  by,  and  for  the  time,  witnessed  the  operation  of 
its  enginery.  I  saw  the  large  misshapen  mass  of  crude  metal 
taken  blazing  from  the  furnace,  and  passed  through  the  illumined 
air  to  the  appropriate  machine.  I  saw  it  there  undergo  the 
designed  transformation.  It  was  made  to  pass  repeatedly  be 
tween  two  grooved  revolving  iron  cylinders,  of  immense  weight. 
At  every  turn  of  the  wheel  it  took  new  form;  it  lengthened, 
stretched,  approximating  still  its  intended  shape,  till  at  the  end 
of  the  operation  it  came  forth  a  well-fashioned  fifteen  or  twenty 
foot  bar  of  iron,  ready  for  the  hand  of  the  artizan,  or  the  machine 
that  was  to  resolve  it  into  forms  for  ultimate  use. 

When  I  had  witnessed  this  process,  I  thought  I  did  not  want 
to  go  to  the  banks  of  the  Nile  to  be  assured  either  of  the  antiquity 
or  the  progress  of  the  race.  An  older  than  the  pyramids  was 
before  me;  one  which,  though  voiceless,  told  a  tale  that  com 
menced  before  the  Pharaohs,  before  the  Memnon,  before  the 
Thebes.  Here  was  a  material  which  had  been  common  to  the 
historical  portion  of  the  human  family  for  the  space  of  five  or 
six  thousand  years.  Millions  on  millions  of  minds  had  been 
tasked  to  improve  the  process  of  its  manufacture.  I  went  back, 
in  imagination,  to  that  primitive  age,  when  the  first  unskilful 
hand  —  some  fur-clad  barbarian  or  savage  —  drew  a  mass  of  the 
raw  material  from  the  side  of  some  volcanic  mountain.  He  con 
structed  a  vessel  of  clay  for  its  reception,  and,  somewhat  in  imi 
tation  of  the  process  he  had  witnessed,  he  placed  it  over  a  heap 
of  blazing  combustibles.  With  long  and  patient  labor  and  care, 
he  reduced  it  to  a  liquid  mass;  and  then  cast  it  into  the  shape 
of  some  rude  implement  of  husbandry  or  war.  Exulting  in  his 
success,  he  brandished  the  instrument  in  triumph,  and  deemed 
it  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  human  improvement. 

He  disappeared;  but  he  left  a  successor.  I  followed  him,  in 
imagination,  and  saw  him  take  the  art  at  the  point  at  which  his 
predecessor  had  left  it.  He  had  discovered  that  the  material  was 
not  only  fusible,  but  ductile;  and  with  sweat  and  toil  that  knew 
no  fatigue,  he  gradually  beat  the  heated  mass  into  the  shape  of 
something  like  a  hatchet,  or  a  sword.  At  this  point  he  also  dis 
appeared;  but  his  successor  came,  and  still  improved  on  the 


48  JOB   DURFEE 

labors  of  his  predecessor.  Generation  thus  followed  generation 
of  apt  apprentices  in  the  art;  they  formed  a  community  of  mas 
ters  skilful  to  direct,  and  of  servants  prompt  to  obey.  They 
fashioned  new  implements  as  their  numbers  increased,  and  the 
wants  of  advancing  civilization  varied  and  multiplied.  The 
master-minds  studied,  and  studied  successfully,  all  the  various 
qualities  and  susceptibilities  of  the  metal.  They  became  skilful 
in  all  its  various  uses,  in  agriculture,  commerce,  manufactures 
and  war.  Yes,  ye  philanthropists!  in  war!  For  humanity  actu 
ally  armed  herself  against  humanity  to  draw  out  and  discipline 
the  faculties  of  the  human  mind,  and  bring  the  art  to  perfection. 
She  instituted  a  school  of  her  own,  and  was  herself  its  stern  and 
unyielding  preceptress.  She  chastened  her  laggard  and  truant 
children  as  with  a  rod  of  iron.  I  saw  her  force  her  sons  into  bond 
age  by  thousands  —  aye,  by  millions.  I  saw  them  sweat  and 
toil  at  the  anvil  like  so  many  living  machines.  They  were  once 
free  barbarians;  but  they  were  now  in  the  school  of  civilization. 
They  were  learning  something  of  the  arts.  They  would  not  labor 
from  the  love  of  labor,  but  only  from  constraint  and  fear.  Their 
willing  task-masters  grew  strong  and  powerful  in  the  labors  of 
the  barbarous  masses,  that  superior  knowledge  and  power  had 
subjected  to  their  will.  They  took  counsel  together,  and  still 
went  forth  to  conquer  and  enslave.  Ages,  centuries,  epochs 
passed  away,  and  still  the  same  process  was  going  on.  They 
built  up  for  themselves  a  bright  and  glorious  intellectual  civili 
zation,  that  extended  far  and  wide  over  the  earth ;  yet  it  was  but 
the  gilding  of  the  surface;  for  it  had  its  deep  and  dark  founda 
tions  upon  mind  in  bondage,  upon  masses  in  slavery;  and  their 
power  grew  feeble  from  expansion.  The  numbers  of  the  free 
would  not  suffice  to  sustain  their  dominion.  And  they  sought  for 
aid,  but  could  conceive  of  none,  save  in  the  enslaved  masses 
beneath  them.  And  now  came,  improved  by  long  ages  of  civili 
zation,  the  scientific  and  inventive  genius  to  their  aid.  She 
glanced  back  upon  the  past;  she  discovered  the  point  of  depart 
ure  from  the  progress  direct,  and  the  source  of  the  errors  whence 
this  appalling  result.  She  sought,  and  sought  not  in  vain,  to 
substitute  the  brute  forces  of  nature  for  the  labor  of  human 
hands.  Then  began  the  water-wheel  to  turn  at  the  falls,  and  the 
trip-hammer  to  sound  upon  the  anvil,  and  the  manacles  of  the 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY   AND   SOCIAL   PROGRESS     49 

slave  to  fall  off,  as  improvement  was  built  upon  improvement, 
in  regular  consecutive  order,  till  the  burning  bar  shot  from  the 
perfected  machinery  almost  unaided  by  human  strength. 

This  brought  me  to  the  process  which  I  had  just  witnessed, 
and  I  thought  I  saw  in  it  the  grand  result  of  the  discipline  and 
labor  of  the  race  for  thousands  of  years.  I  thought  I  saw  in  it, 
not  only  the  reality  of  a  progress  in  the  race,  but  the  unquestion 
able  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  law  of  progress,  carrying  on  its 
grand  process  through  the  whole  humanity  by  a  logical  series  of 
causes  and  effects,  from  its  earliest  premises,  in  far  distant 
antiquity,  to  its  latest  result;  and  that  the  law  which  rules  in 
discovery  and  invention,  is  one  and  identical  with  that  which 
governs  in  the  progress  of  the  race. 

I  speak  not  here  of  particular  communities  or  nations  —  for 
nations,  like  men,  decay  and  die  —  but  of  the  whole  humanity, 
which  is  as  immortal  as  the  spirit  of  man,  or,  perhaps,  as  the 
divinity  that  rules  it;  which  feeds  and  grows  in  one  branch  of  its 
existence  upon  the  decaying  energies  of  another,  and  which  is 
thus  ever  renovating  its  vital  and  intellectual  energies  out  of  the 
past,  and,  amid  unceasing  decay,  enjoying  a  perpetual  rejuvenes 
cence.  On  such  an  existence  doth  this  law  of  progress  ever  act; 
constantly  forming  and  energizing  the  individual  intellect  by 
the  unceasingly  accumulating  wisdom  of  the  past,  and  by  appro 
priating  the  forces  of  nature  to  the  uses  of  social  man,  it  is,  at  this 
day,  carrying  on  in  the  world  of  mind  that  work  of  creation  which 
the  Divine  Author  of  humanity  did  but  commence  in  the  garden 
of  Eden. 

There  may  be  limits  to  man's  capacities,  but  to  the  energies  of 
nature  which  those  capacities,  acting  under  this  law,  may  put 
in  requisition,  there  are  no  limits.  Each  new  discovery  in  science 
suggests  the  existence  of  something  yet  undiscovered;  each  new 
combination  in  art,  on  trial,  suggests  combinations  yet  untried; 
thus  revealing,  on  the  one  hand,  a  law  of  suggestion,  which,  from 
the  nature  of  mind,  must  ever  act;  and,  on  the  other,  objects  and 
subjects  of  action  which  are  as  boundless  and  as  inexhaustible 
as  the  universe. 

Now  if  this  be,  and  must  continue  to  be  the  true  process  of 
discovery  and  invention;  and  if,  in  its  progress,  as  I  hope  to 
prove,  it  must  constantly  reflect  itself  into  all  social  and  political 


50  JOB   DURFEE 

organizations,  we  have  an  assurance  of  progress,  not  dependent, 
thank  Heaven,  upon  carrying  to  their  results  any  political 
abstractions,  or  any  idea  of  popular  sovereignty  drawn  from  the 
perversions  of  revolutionary  France;  but  upon  a  law  of  progress, 
which  God  has  ordained  for  the  government  of  humanity,  and 
which  is  as  certain  and  eternal  in  its  operations  as  any  law  which 
governs  the  material  universe. 

But  let  us  see,  by  a  brief  glance  at  the  page  of  history,  whether 
this  law  of  progressive  discovery  and  invention,  doth,  or  doth 
not,  rule  in  social  and  political  progress. 

And  here  let  me  premise,  that  the  sciences  and  the  arts,  con 
sidered  with  reference  to  social  and  political  progress,  may  be 
divided  into  two  classes ;  first,  those  which  are  necessary  or  use 
ful  as  aids  or  instruments  of  thought  and  sentiment;  as  among 
the  sciences,  grammar,  rhetoric,  logic,  geometry ;  and  among  the 
arts,  music,  poetry,  painting,  sculpture,  architecture,  and  the 
art  of  writing,  or  preserving  the  memory  of  the  past.  Second, 
those  whose  immediate  object  it  is  to  enlarge  our  knowledge  of 
nature,  and  improve  the  physical  condition  of  man.  These  are 
the  physical  sciences,  and  useful  arts  improved  by  science.  In 
the  progress  of  the  race,  the  first  class  is  necessarily  brought 
earliest  to  perfection.  Man  must  be  disciplined  to  think  logi 
cally,  and  to  communicate  and  preserve  his  thoughts  and  senti 
ments,  before  he  can  make  any  considerable  progress  in  the  phys 
ical  sciences  and  useful  arts.  Hence  it  is,  that,  among  the  ancient 
nations  of  the  earth,  we  find  this  high  order  of  mind  almost 
exclusively  engaged  in  carrying  the  first  class  to  perfection, 
whilst  it  devoted  comparatively  little  attention  to  the  physical 
sciences  and  useful  arts.  Indeed  the  useful  arts  seem  to  have 
been  abandoned  almost  entirely  to  slaves.  They  were  carried 
on  by  manual  labor.  Invention  had  not  yet  subjected  the  forces 
of  nature  to  the  human  will,  and  that  vast  amount  of  toil,  which 
is  required  to  support  a  splendid  civilization,  was  urged  on  by 
an  immense  mass  of  people  in  bondage. 

I  would  further  observe,  that  as  the  scientific  and  inventive 
order  of  mind  subsists,  generally,  independent  of  any  necessary 
connection  with  any  particular  government,  so  its  influence  is 
not  to  be  traced  in  the  history  of  this  or  that  people  or  commu 
nity  merely,  but  rather  in  that  of  a  common  civilization;  such  as 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS    51 

that  of  classical  antiquity,  or  modern  Christendom,  consisting 
of  a  community  of  nations,  in  which  one  government  or  society 
acts  upon  another,  and  from  which,  through  this  very  diversity, 
that  order  of  mind  derives  its  power  to  coerce.  It  acts  through 
one  government  on  another,  through  one  society  on  another, 
through  society  on  government,  and  through  government  on 
society;  its  discoveries  and  inventions  everywhere  inviting  the 
appropriate  change,  at  first  from  policy,  but  if  not  adopted  from 
policy,  compelling  its  adoption,  at  last,  by  force  of  the  principle 
of  self-preservation. 

History  enables  us  to  show,  in  but  a  few  instances,  the  effects 
which  each  succeeding  discovery  or  invention  produced  on  soci 
ety  in  the  infancy  of  the  race;  but  it  does  enable  us  to  see  their 
combined  results  in  the  form  which  society  took  under  their 
dominion. 

In  Egypt,  the  sacerdotal  order  was  the  depository  of  all  the 
science  and  learning  of  the  age;  and  that  order,  in  fact,  seems  to 
have  been  the  governing  power.  Now  what  were  its  sciences, 
real  or  pretended?  Geometry,  astronomy,  astrology,  and  a 
mystic  theology.  These  were  studied  as  the  great  sciences  of 
ancient  Egypt,  and  carried  out  into  their  respective  arts;  and, 
to  say  nothing  about  their  geometry  and  astronomy,  have  not 
the  two  last  left  the  distinctive  impress  of  their  mysticism  upon 
everything  that  remains  of  this  ancient  civilization?  It  appears 
in  the  labyrinth,  the  pyramid,  the  temple,  and  the  hieroglyphics 
with  which  they  were  blazoned;  and  in  the  statuary,  the  sphinx, 
the  veiled  Isis,  and  mute  Harpocrates,  with  which  each  entrance 
was  sanctified.  Society  divided  itself,  spontaneously,  into  castes. 
Where  there  is  progress,  the  highest  order  of  intellect  must  lead, 
and  the  priesthood  of  Egypt,  with  the  king  at  their  head,  neces 
sarily  stood  first.  Next  to  them  the  warrior  caste,  by  which  all 
was  defended  or  preserved.  Beneath  them,  the  mass  consisting 
chiefly  of  slaves,  or  those  who  were  elevated  little  above  the  con 
dition  of  bondmen.  These  were  again  divided  into  castes,  corre 
sponding  to  the  laborious  arts  which  they  followed,  with,  prob 
ably,  each  its  tutelary  deity.  The  son  followed  the  occupation  of 
his  father,  and  society  underwent  a  sort  of  petrifaction,  from  the 
arts  which  admitted  of  no  change  without  destruction.  This 
arrangement  could  not  have  resulted  from  the  designs  of  a  cun- 


52  JOB   DURFEE 

ning  priesthood,  establishing  and  ordaining  the  organization  for 
their  particular  benefit.  It  must  have  grown  up  with  the  progress 
of  the  sciences  and  arts.  Each  art,  newly  invented  or  introduced, 
had  its  artisans,  who  transmitted,  like  the  sacerdotal  order,  their 
peculiar  mystery  to  their  particular  posterity.  The  governing 
power,  since  it  embodied  within  itself  all  science,  and  took  its 
constitution  from  it,  might,  after  the  arts  had  reflected  them 
selves  into  society,  have  very  naturally  interfered  to  protect 
that  social  organization,  into  which,  as  mysteries,  they  spon 
taneously  fell. 

But  let  us  pass  to  Greece.  No  one  doubts  that  Greece  owed 
her  civilization  to  her  literature  and  arts.  But  to  what  was  she 
indebted  for  the  successful  cultivation  of  these?  It  has  been 
ascribed  to  the  freedom  of  her  political  institutions.  But,  again 
it  may  be  asked,  to  what  were  they  indebted  for  that  freedom? 
Is  it  not  plain  that  they  were  indebted  for  it  to  the  fact  that  her 
literature  and  arts  early  took  root  in  the  vigorous  barbarism  of 
distinct  and  independent  communities,  and  that  as  her  political 
institutions  settled  down  into  definite  and  fixed  forms,  they  took 
their  complexion  and  shape  necessarily  from  the  arts  and  litera 
ture  cultivated  by  society?  In  Lacedsemon,  the  art  of  war  alone 
was  cultivated,  and  she  was,  for  long,  exclusively  a  martial  State, 
but  was  finally  obliged  to  give  way  to  the  influences  operating 
around  and  within  her.  As  to  all  the  rest  of  Greece,  it  was  un 
der  the  dominion  of  the  fluctuating  wills  of  the  many,  or  the 
few,  and  there  was  nothing  permanent  to  give  regular  progres 
sion  and  tendency  to  political  and  social  institutions,  but  the 
arts  and  sciences  cultivated. 

Greece  commenced  her  civilization  with  colonies  from  Egypt 
and  Phoenicia.  They  brought  with  them  the  arts  and  sciences, 
and  something  of  the  wealth  of  the  parent  countries,  and  in 
grafted  all  on  her  active  barbarism.  And  here,  again,  the  imme 
diate  influence  of  the  newly  introduced  sciences  and  arts,  or  of 
any  particular  disco  very  or  invention,  rarely  appears  in  history, 
and  is  but  dimly  shadowed  forth  in  the  myths  of  the  golden  and 
heroic  ages.  But  until  they  were  introduced,  Greece  was  peo 
pled  by  bands  of  roving  savages.  Piracy  was  an  honorable  pro 
fession;  the  coast  could  not  be  safely  inhabited;  one  savage  band 
was  continually  driven  back  upon  another.  Attica  was  spared 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY   AND   SOCIAL   PROGRESS    53 

for  its  poverty.  The  Corinthians  made  the  first  great  improve 
ment  in  naval  architecture.  They  invented  the  war  galley  of 
three  banks  of  oars;  they  constructed  a  navy  of  like  craft.  This 
was  followed  by  great  results;  they  cleared  the  Grecian  seas  of 
pirates;  nations  settled  on  the  coast,  and  by  like  means  kept 
them  clear.  The  Mediterranean  was  laid  open  to  honest  traffic; 
commerce  flourished;  the  arts  flourished.  The  Grecian  communi 
ties  took  the  longest  stride  in  the  infancy  of  their  progress  from 
this  simple  improvement  in  naval  architecture  —  the  longest 
with  the  exception  of  that  made  by  the  Trojan  war.  That  war 
did  for  the  Greeks  what  the  crusades  in  modern  times  did  for 
the  nations  of  Europe  —  it  made  them  known  to  each  other; 
disciplined  them  in  a  common  art  of  war;  made  them  acquainted 
with  a  higher  civilization  and  its  arts,  and  restored  them  to  their 
country  with  a  common  history,  and  themes  for  their  bards  of 
all  time. 

Greece,  it  is  believed,  presents  the  first  instance  of  a  civilized 
people  in  which  the  exercise  of  the  powers  of  government  and  the 
almost  exclusive  cultivation  of  the  sciences  are  not  to  be  found 
in  the  same  hands.  The  sacerdotal  corporation  in  Greece  did  not 
embrace  all  learning,  as  in  Egypt,  and  did  not,  as  there,  control 
the  state.  Science  and  art,  absolved  from  political  connection, 
stood  then  and  there,  on  the  same  independent  ground,  as  in  our 
own  age  and  country.  Philosophy,  it  is  true,  was  held  in  check 
by  superstition;  but  government  did  not  assume  to  restrain, 
control,  or  direct  improvement  in  art  and  science.  And  now, 
what  was  the  result  of  this  independent  and  isolated  existence  of 
the  scientific  mind  upon  the  social  and  political  organizations 
of  Greece?  It  seems  to  me  to  have  been  immense.  Whatever  of 
art  or  science  was  introduced  from  Egypt  found  no  corresponding 
social  organization  in  Greece,  and  the  bondage  of  caste  there 
never  appeared  —  and  for  this  reason  it  is  that  of  all  the  races 
of  men  the  Grecian  is  the  first  to  present  us  with  an  intellectual 
people;  a  people  intellectual  and  progressive  by  force  of  its  own 
internal  and  all-pervasive  action.  Science  was  no  mystery,  and 
each  Greek  was  at  liberty  to  cultivate  whatever  branch  of  knowl 
edge  or  art  it  to  him  seemed  meet;  and  therefore  it  was  that  the 
Grecian  society  necessarily  became  free  to  the  extent  to  which 
this  cultivation  could  be  carried,  and  there  freedom  stopped  — 


54  JOB   DURFEE 

there  slavery  commenced.  Those  who  were  consigned  to  the 
labors  of  the  industrial  arts,  if  it  had  been  permitted,  had  neither 
the  means  nor  the  power  to  cultivate  the  sciences;  and  they  were 
slaves. 

Every  free  Greek  did  or  might  cultivate  grammar,  logic, 
rhetoric,  music,  and  geometry.  And  what  was  the  product  of 
these  sciences?  The  fine  arts.  They  improved  language;  they 
improved  the  power  of  expressing  thought  and  sentiment;  and 
they  produced  philosophers,  poets,  historians,  orators,  sculptors, 
painters,  and  architects.  These  produced  an  ever-enduring  liter 
ature,  and  specimens  in  the  fine  arts  destined  to  become  models 
for  all  time.  The  sciences  and  arts  of  Greece  became  the  sciences 
and  arts  of  Rome  and  the  Roman  empire,  and  were  diffused  to 
the  full  extent  of  Roman  conquest. 

I  will  not  indulge  in  any  common-place  rhetoric  about  Gre 
cian  civilization.  You  know  what  it  was.  The  only  point  to 
which  I  would  here  call  your  attention  is,  that  the  arts  and 
sciences  of  classical  antiquity  were  not  effects  of  the  improved 
character  of  the  social  and  political  institutions  of  the  epoch; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  that  their  improved  character  was  the 
result  of  the  scientific  progress  of  the  common  mind,  which  prog 
ress  went  on  in  obedience  to  no  law,  save  that  which  God  has 
ordained  for  its  government. 

But  it  was  the  liberal  sciences  and  the  fine  arts  that  were 
mainly  cultivated  in  this  ancient  civilization.  Man  had  not 
learned  to  go  abroad  out  of  himself  into  nature  to  search  for 
facts.  He  found  the  elements  of  the  sciences  and  arts,  which  he 
almost  exclusively  cultivated,  within  his  own  mind,  or  within 
his  immediate  social  sphere.  He  was  preparing  the  necessary 
means,  the  instruments,  by  which  he  was  in  after  times  to  explore 
the  universe,  and  extend  the  sphere  of  social  improvement  by 
the  physical  sciences  and  useful  arts. 

And  now  what  was  the  consequence  of  this  perhaps  necessary 
restriction  of  discovery  and  invention?  A  superficial  civilization, 
grand  and  imposing  it  is  true,  but  still  a  civilization  that  went 
no  further  than  the  practically  free  cultivation  of  the  predomi 
nant  arts  and  sciences  of  the  epoch;  a  civilization  that  did  not 
penetrate  the  great  mass  of  human  society.  The  laborious  indus 
try  by  which  it  was  supported,  was  carried  on  by  an  immense 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY   AND   SOCIAL   PROGRESS     55 

mass  of  unintellectual  bondmen,  who  were  to  be  employed  by 
their  masters,  lest  they  should  find  employment  for  themselves. 
The  useful  arts  became  mysteries,  and  the  secrets  of  nature 
remained  secrets  still. 

Everywhere,  throughout  this  ancient  civilization,  whether 
Grecian  or  Roman,  the  same  horizontal  division  of  society  pre 
vailed,  and  in  portions  of  like  ratio.  A  portion  of  the  social  mind, 
large,  it  is  true,  if  compared  with  anything  in  preceding  history, 
was  cultivated;  but  still  a  very  small  portion,  if  compared  with 
the  masses  in  bondage.  In  Attica,  the  proportion  of  the  freemen 
to  the  whole  enslaved  population,  was  as  two  to  forty;  in  the 
Roman  empire,  at  one  time,  as  seven  to  sixty;  and  the  bondmen 
subsequently  so  far  increased,  that  armies  sufficient  for  the  de 
fence  of  the  State  could  not  be  enlisted  from  the  freemen. 
Beneath  this  bright  covering  of  civilization,  what  a  vast  amount 
of  intellectual  susceptibility  lay  slumbering  in  the  night  of  igno 
rance  and  bondage! 

The  predominant  arts  and  sciences  of  this  epoch  were  at  last 
brought  to  their  perfection.  They  ceased  to  advance,  and  society 
became  stationary.  The  mind  of  Asia  and  the  south  of  Europe 
could  go  no  further.  It  was  the  hardy  vigor  of  the  north,  alone, 
that  was  competent  successfully  to  use  the  instruments  which 
this  ancient  civilization  had  perfected;  to  go  out  of  the  sphere  of 
social  man  into  nature;  to  regenerate  and  multiply  the  useful 
arts  and  sciences,  and,  by  their  means,  to  elevate  the  masses 
from  the  condition  of  bondage  to  the  freedom  of  intellectual  life. 
Northern  barbarism,  therefore,  came;  and  it  conquered,  for  this 
simple  reason,  that  the  arts  and  sciences  of  antiquity  had  not 
made  the  civilization  of  the  epoch  sufficiently  strong  to  resist  it. 

Gentlemen,  we  are  not  dealing  with  a  history  of  events,  but 
with  the  causes  which  produce  them,  and  especially  those  changes 
which  add  permanently  to  the  improvement  of  the  social  and 
political  condition  of  man.  I  know  you  may  follow  these  changes 
in  the  history  of  events,  civil,  religious,  and  military;  but  I  am 
endeavoring  to  point  out  their  origin  in  those  causes  which  gave 
the  institutions  they  produced  shape,  consistency,  and  duration; 
and  to  demonstrate,  that  they  are  not  to  be  found  in  accident, 
or  hi  the  arbitrary  dictates  of  the  human  will,  but  in  an  eternal 
law  of  mind,  which  especially  manifests  itself  in  the  arts  and 


56  JOB   DURFEE 

sciences.  For  this  reason  it  is  not  necessary  to  cite  all  history, 
but  merely  a  number  of  its  facts,  sufficient  to  establish  the  posi 
tion. 

And  now,  lest  I  should  exhaust  your  patience,  I  pass  the  gulf 
of  the  middle  ages  with  this  single  observation,  that  it  was  a 
season  during  which  Christianity  was  engaged  in  humanizing 
and  softening  the  heart  of  barbarism,  and  thus  qualifying  its 
mind  to  take  form  under  the  influence  of  modern  art  and  science ; 
and  landing  on  the  margin  of  our  present  civilization,  I  proceed 
to  discuss  the  social  and  political  effects  of  scientific  discovery 
and  invention  in  modern  times.  And  here  we  have  an  oppor 
tunity  of  tracing  those  effects  with  historical  certainty  to  their 
causes,  and  of  proving,  as  I  hope,  to  minds  the  most  skeptical, 
the  truth  of  our  position. 

But,  before  doing  this,  I  must  speak  of  the  social  condition  of 
the  mass  of  society  on  which  early  modern  discoveries  produced 
their  effects.  Time  will  permit  me  to  state  it  only  in  the  most 
general  terms;  and  perhaps,  on  an  occasion  like  the  present,  and 
to  such  an  audience,  this  is  all  that  is  necessary,  or  even  proper. 

Guizot,  in  his  admirable  history  of  the  civilization  of  modern 
Europe,  dates  the  commencement  of  modern  society  in  the  six 
teenth  century.  But  modern  society  came  out  of  a  pre-existent 
state  of  things,  which  state  of  things  first  manifested  itself  and 
became  general  in  the  tenth  century,  when  Europe  rose  out  of  the 
bosom  of  a  chaotic  barbarism,  and  took  distinct  form  in  the 
feudal  system.  This  remark,  however,  applies  more  particularly 
to  the  north  and  west  of  Europe.  It  was  whilst  this  was  the  pre 
dominant  system  that  she  commenced  and  carried  on  the  cru 
sades,  and  not  only  made  herself  acquainted  with  herself,  but 
with  the  remnants  of  civilization  in  the  east  and  south  of  Europe. 
It  was  not  until  the  thirteenth  century  that  she  manifested  a 
decided  tendency  to  her  present  political  and  social  organization. 
And  it  is  to  a  mere  glance  at  her  condition  at  this  period,  that  I 
would  now  invite  your  attention. 

In  the  east  was  the  Greek,  the  remnant  of  the  ancient  Roman 
empire,  still  consisting  of  the  same  elements  which  distinguished 
it  at  the  time  of  Constantine,  a  master  class  and  a  servant  class. 
Those  of  the  first  class,  eclipsed  though  they  were,  "  had  not  yet 
lost  all  their  original  brightness. "  They  were  still  imbued  with 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY   AND   SOCIAL   PROGRESS     57 

something  of  the  philosophy  and  literature  of  ancient  Greece; 
and,  in  point  of  numbers,  they  bore  perhaps  about  the  same  ratio 
as  their  progenitors  to  the  immense  mass  of  slaves  beneath  them. 
In  Italy,  were  the  Italian  republics,  exhibiting  remnants  of  the 
ancient  Roman  municipal  institutions.  They  cultivated  the 
Latin  literature,  and  were  soon  to  be  engaged  in  renovating  the 
fine  arts  of  classical  antiquity,  and  were  already,  for  the  era, 
extensively  employed  in  commercial  enterprise.  The  ratio  of  the 
free  to  the  bond  was  probably  about  the  same  as  it  had  been 
during  the  Roman  empire.  Subject  to  these  exceptions,  all 
Europe  fell  under  the  feudal  system,  and  certain  corporations, 
called  free  cities,  which,  situated  within  the  fief  of  some  baron, 
wrested  or  wrung  from  him  whatever  privileges  they  could,  by 
force  or  compact.  There  were  no  nations  —  no  governments  on 
a  large  scale.  Europe  was  dotted  all  over  with  baronies  and  these 
free  cities.  Each  barony,  whatever  it  might  be  in  theory,  was  a 
little  sovereignty.  Each  baron,  with  his  retainers,  under  a  load 
of  armor,  and  armed  with  sword  and  lance,  and  other  offensive 
weapons  of  the  times,  occupied  his  castle  in  the  country.  He 
willingly  submitted  to  no  law,  save  that  of  superior  force.  His 
kingdom  was  his  fief,  and  his  subjects  were  his  vassals,  who 
followed  him  in  war,  or  tilled  his  land,  or  performed  for  him 
other  laborious  service.  The  free  cities  were  walled;  the  dwelling 
of  the  burgher  was  not  merely  in  law,  but  in  fact,  his  castle,  pro 
tected  by  tower  and  parapet;  and  the  burgher  himself,  when  he 
ventured  abroad  to  thread  the  narrow  lanes  and  crooked  streets 
of  his  city,  went  armed  with  lance,  and  often  under  cover  of 
armor.  The  Romish  church  presented  the  only  element  which 
pervaded  all  these  little  sovereignties  and  cities.  Except  among 
the  clergy  and  the  civilians,  there  were  no  scholars;  and,  to  say 
nothing  about  their  vassals,  perhaps  not  one  in  a  hundred  of  the 
noble  barons  themselves  could  either  read  or  write.  Nay,  they 
were  proud  of  their  ignorance  of  those  accomplishments.  The 
author  of  Marmion  means  to  give  them  their  true  character,  at 
a  much  later  period,  when  he  represents  the  Douglas  as  exclaim 
ing — 

"  Thanks  to  St.  Botham!  son  of  mine, 
Save  Gawain,  ne'er  could  pen  a  line; 
I  swore  it  once,  I  swear  it  still  — 
Let  my  boy-bishop  fret  his  fill." 


58  JOB   DURFEE 

It  is  true,  that  when  the  crusades  ceased,  something  of  that  zeal 
which  had  originated  and  carried  them  on  began  to  pass  into  new 
channels.  Those  immense  masses  that  had  passed  out  of  the 
north  and  west  of  Europe,  had  made  themselves  acquainted  with 
the  advancing  civilization  of  the  Italian  republics,  and  with  the 
remnant  of  ancient  civilization  in  the  Greek  empire.  They  had 
penetrated  into  Asia,  and  had  heard  and  credited  all  the  fables 
that  oriental  imagination  could  invent,  of  the  wealth  and  splen 
dor  of  the  gorgeous  east,  who  with 

"  richest  hand 
Showered  on  her  kings  barbaric  pearl  and  gold." 

And  they  returned  to  their  respective  countries  with  these  fables, 
and  stimulated  a  thirst  for  further  knowledge;  but  above  all, 
they  excited  the  love  of  adventure  and  discovery,  a  yearning  for 
the  yet  unexplored  and  unknown;  breeding  a  vague  but  confi 
dent  faith  in  a  something  vast,  boundless,  mysterious,  that  was 
yet  in  reserve  for  daring  enterprise,  or  unyielding  perseverance 
—  haply  a  true  augury  this  of  the  discovery  yet  to  be  made  on 
this  side  the  Atlantic  —  yet,  however  fertile  their  imaginations, 
the  most  ardent  of  them  had  not  conceived  the  possibility  of  the 
existence  of  this  continent.  Here  it  lay,  secreted  in  the  western 
skies,  beyond  an  ocean  whose  westward  rolling  billow,  it  was 
then  deemed,  broke  on  no  shore  toward  the  setting  sun,  await 
ing,  in  all  the  grandeur  of  waving  forest,  towering  mountain,  and 
majestically  winding  stream,  the  further  discoveries  of  science, 
and  the  future  wants  of  a  progressive  civilization. 

Now  let  us  for  one  moment  contemplate  this  condition  of 
affairs  throughout  Europe  —  this  vast  number  of  scattered  petty 
sovereignties  and  municipal  communities  —  this  general  perva 
sive  ignorance  —  this  enormous  mass  of  vassals,  serfs,  and  slaves, 
which  underlaid  and  gave  foundation  to  all;  and  then  ask  our 
selves,  what  process  of  legislation  or  compact,  originating  merely 
in  the  human  will,  could  have  resolved  this  jumble  of  conflicting 
materials  into  those  organized  nations  and  communities  of 
nations,  which  now  constitute  the  civilization  of  all  Christendom. 
We  can  conceive  of  no  process  so  originating,  that  could  possibly 
have  brought  about  this  grand  result.  Yet  human  legislation  and 
compact  were  the  secondary  causes  by  which  it  was  accomplished. 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY   AND   SOCIAL  PROGRESS    59 

But  what,  humanly  speaking,  was  the  primary  cause?  That  is 
the  subject  of  our  inquiry.  I  find  it  in  a  necessary  result  of  that 
law  of  scientific  progress,  which  I  have  already  pointed  out;  I 
find  it  in  the  grand  revolution  which  at  this  time  took  place  in 
the  science  and  art  of  war;  in  one  word,  I  find  it  in  the  invention 
of  gunpowder.  Start  not  with  incredulity  and  aversion  at  the 
annunciation;  the  cause  of  causes  is  there.  Tell  me  not  of  wars 
domestic  and  foreign,  of  treaties,  of  parliaments,  of  councils  of 
state  and  church.  They  were  the  mere  external  symptoms  of  the 
action  of  the  all-sufficient  internal  cause.  Yes,  the  first  cannon 
that  projected  the  ball  of  stone  or  iron,  announced,  in  its  own 
voice  of  thunder,  the  final  doom  of  the  feudal  system,  the  cen 
tralization  of  nations,  the  ultimate  emancipation  of  the  en 
thralled,  and  the  establishment  of  a  Christian  civilization  on  a 
basis  never  more  to  be  perilled  by  the  inroad  of  barbarian,  or  the 
invasion  of  Turk.  The  revival  of  ancient  learning  might  have 
done  much  toward  again  plating  over  society  with  the  civiliza 
tion  of  classical  antiquity;  but  neither  that  nor  mere  human  legis 
lation  could  have  overthrown  the  feudal  system,  centralized 
nations,  penetrated,  and  finally  emancipated  the  nether  mass  of 
bondmen,  and  forever  shut  out  the  inundations  of  barbarism. 

Feudalism  gave  way  either  immediately,  in  anticipation  of 
the  results  of  the  discovery,  or  finally,  under  the  direct  operation 
of  its  physical  force.  What  availed  the  Herculean  arm,  or  giant 
muscular  force?  What  availed  the  panoply  of  helmet,  and  shield, 
and  coat  of  mail?  Nay,  what  availed  tower  and  trench,  parapet 
and  battlement,  whether  of  baronial  castle,  walled  city,  or 
burgher's  armed  abode?  They  all  crumbled  into  atoms,  or  stood 
scathed  and  powerless  before  the  blast  of  this  tremendous  inven 
tion. 

Gunpowder,  in  the  material  world,  is  a  most  terrible  leveller; 
it  makes  no  distinction  between  the  strong  man  and  the  weak. 
But  in  the  world  of  mind,  it  is  a  most  determined  aristocrat.  It 
establishes  "in  times  that  try  men's  souls,"  none  but  the  aristoc 
racy  of  intellect.  Nay,  in  the  long  run,  it  goes  still  further;  for, 
since  to  command  its  service  it  requires  national  wealth,  it  per 
petuates  power  in  the  hands  of  those  only  who  know  how  best 
to  use  it  for  the  benefit  of  all. 

The  barons  abandoned  their  castles  for  the  court  of  the  sover- 


60  JOB   DURFEE 

eign  suzerain  or  lord;  and  that  lord  became  the  most  powerful 
whose  resources  were  the  most  abundant.  Immense  wealth,  such 
only  as  a  people  at  least  practically  free  can  create,  became  neces 
sary  in  order  to  carry  on  a  war  of  offence  or  defence.  The  suze 
rain,  or  king,  was  thus  at  once  converted  into  the  friend,  and 
became  the  liberator  of  bondmen.  Vassals  and  burghers  became 
subjects  and  citizens;  practically  free.  And  their  freedom  was 
guarantied  to  them  by  no  plighted  faith  of  kings;  by  no  lettered 
scroll  of  parchment;  but  by  an  irreversible  law  of  necessity,  en 
acted  by  this  sovereign  invention.  What  it  did  for  individuals, 
it  did  for  nations ;  armies  could  no  longer  carry  on  war  in  a  for 
eign  country  without  keeping  up  a  communication  with  their 
own;  and  to  conquer  a  new  country,  was  to  establish  a  new 
base  for  military  operations  against  others;  and  thus,  from  neces 
sity,  was  established  a  community  of  nations,  in  which  the 
safety  of  all  found  a  guaranty  only  in  the  independence  and  free 
dom  of  each.  Hence  comes  that  law  of  nations  which  is  recog 
nized  by  all  Christendom,  and  that  sleepless  vigilance  which 
guards  and  preserves  the  balance  of  power. 

Gentlemen:  After  considering  these  consequences,  permit  me 
to  ask  you  whether  Christendom  be  indebted  for  her  progress, 
thus  far  stated,  to  human  legislation,  guided  by  some  abstract 
theory  merely,  or  to  the  sovereign  law  imposed  upon  her  by  this 
all-controlling  invention?  When  one  nation  had  adopted  this 
invention,  all  were  obliged  to  adopt  it,  and  Christendom  having 
thus  necessarily  received  this  power  into  her  bosom,  shaped  her 
policy  by  the  necessities  which  it  imposed.  Indeed,  she  owed  her 
then,  and  owes  her  present  condition,  not  to  the  foresight  of 
her  counsels  guided  by  the  speculations  of  her  theorists,  but 
to  this  law  of  human  progress,  which  has  overruled  her  follies 
and  sustained  her  wisdom. 

I  have  been  considering  an  invention  which  begins  its  influ 
ence  in  the  world  of  matter  and  reflects  it  inward  to  the  world  of 
mind.  I  now  pass  to  another  discovery  or  invention,  that  belongs 
to  the  same  century,  but  which  begins  its  influence  in  the  world 
of  mind,  and  reflects  it  outward  to  the  world  of  matter.  You  will 
at  once  understand  me  to  refer  to  the  art  of  printing. 

Were  human  progress  a  mere  result  of  fortuitous  events,  and 
not  the  necessary  operation  of  a  law  of  mind,  proceeding  from  a 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY   AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS    61 

designing  reason,  these  two  discoveries,  made  about  the  same 
time,  might  be  inscribed  in  the  list  of  remarkable  coincidences. 
But  they  belong  to  no  such  list.  The  invention  of  printing,  like 
every  other,  may  be  traced  from  its  first  rude  essays  down 
through  a  logical  series  of  discoveries  and  improvements,  urged 
on  by  the  conspiring  action  of  the  whole  humanity,  to  its  last 
grand  result,  as  the  necessary  consequence  of  all  that  has  pre 
ceded  it.  It  was  necessary  that  a  large  portion  of  the  human  race 
should  be  educated  to  the  use  of  letters;  that  the  art  of  reading 
and  writing  should  become  widely  diffused;  the  materials  for 
copying  cheap,  and  the  demand  for  copies  beyond  the  capacity 
of  the  penman  to  supply.  You  may  accordingly  trace  the  growth, 
which  produced  this  invention,  from  the  first  symbolic  painting 
of  thought  on  rock  or  tree,  by  roving  savage,  to  the  mnemonic 
hieroglyphics  inscribed  on  pyramid  and  temple;  then  to  charac 
ters  representing  words;  then  to  those  representing  syllables; 
till  the  very  elements  of  the  human  voice  at  last  take  representa 
tive  form  in  the  alphabet.  In  this  form  it  branches  forth  beyond 
the  sacerdotal  caste,  and,  like  the  banyan  tree,  repeats  itself  by 
striking  its  far-reaching  branches  into  fresh  soil.  It  passes  from 
the  Egyptian  into  the  Phoenician,  thence  into  the  stronger  intel 
lectual  soil  of  Greece;  it  multiplies  itself  throughout  the  Roman 
empire,  at  every  repetition  making  still  further  demands  upon 
the  labors  of  the  hand;  it  survives  the  middle  ages,  that  its  far- 
extending  root  and  branch  might  draw  increased  vigor  from  the 
northern  mind,  and  that  nether  mass  of  humanity,  which  is  at 
length  thrown  open  to  more  genial  influences ;  and  then  it  is,  that 
this  stupendous  growth  of  all  time  puts  forth,  as  its  last  fruit, 
this  wonder-working  art  of  printing.  Readers  had  multiplied 
with  the  revival  of  ancient  learning,  with  the  progress  of  eman 
cipation,  with  the  love  of  the  marvellous  in  romance,  and  the 
mysterious  in  religion,  and  demands  for  copies  of  great  works, 
and  especially  for  such  as  were  sacred,  or  were  so  esteemed,  could 
be  satisfied  in  no  way  but  by  the  labor-saving  machinery  of  the 
press. 

Now  the  military  art  must  date  its  rude  origin  at  the  same 
distant  epoch.  It  must  have  grown  by  force  of  the  same  law  of 
suggestion,  and  therefore  must  have  almost  necessarily  produced 
its  corresponding  invention  of  gunpowder,  during  the  same  cen- 


62  JOB   DURFEE 

tury.  Thus  it  was  that  one  and  the  same  law  of  progress  con 
spired  to  perfect  these  two  grand  inventions  at  about  the  same 
time.  Twin  sovereigns,  the  one  to  commence  its  labors  in  the 
world  of  mind,  the  other  in  the  world  of  matter. 
:«  And  what  were  the  effects  of  the  art  of  printing,  on  social  and 
political  institutions?  Did  it  take  law  from  the  human  legislator, 
or  give  him  law?  Let  us  see. 

It  created,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  what  may  be  called  a 
public  mind.  Cabined  and  cribbed  though  it  was,  within  the 
forms  of  an  age  of  despotism  and  bigotry,  that  mind  grew  and 
expanded,  till  it  felt  the  pressure  of  those  forms  as  obstructions 
to  its  growth.  It  then  reformed  the  legislator  himself,  and 
through  him  cast  off  its  obstructions,  and  thereupon  expanded, 
with  a  broader  liberty,  into  a  mightier  stature. 

This  mind  thus  shaped  itself,  not  upon  general  speculating 
ideas,  but  upon  natural  tendencies  and  habits  of  thought,  com 
ing  from  the  hoary  past,  and  common  to  all,  and  to  which  the 
inspiring  influence  of  the  press  now  gave  an  all-pervasive  life 
Society  was  thus  made  to  feel  its  existence  through  its  organized 
entirety  through  all  its  institutions  and  interests;  and  on  this 
regenerated  feeling,  common  to  all,  was  established  a  true  sover 
eignty  of  public  opinion.  Do  not  misunderstand  me.  When  I 
speak  of  public  opinion,  I  do  not  mean  the  wild  impulse  of  mi 
nority  or  majority;  I  do  not  mean  popular  agitation  or  efferves 
cence.  I  do  not  mean  a  state  of  mind  indicated  by  mass  meetings, 
barbecues,  and  the  like.  These  may  indicate  a  feverish  state  of 
the  public  mind,  but  they  indicate  no  public  opinion.  On  the 
contrary,  they  show  that  public  opinion  on  the  given  subject  is 
not  yet  formed.  But  I  mean  that  opinion  which  is  a  natural, 
spontaneous  growth,  or  proceeding  from  the  organized  whole; 
which  is  therefore  in  accordance  with  the  political  institutions, 
established  interests,  and  the  general  moral  and  religious  sense 
of  a  community.  Until  these  are  endangered,  threatened  or  dis 
turbed,  public  opinion  rests  unmoved,  and  heeds  not  the  angry 
discussions  that  are  going  on  among  the  overheated  partizans 
of  the  day. 

If,  therefore,  you  would  know  what  public  opinion  is,  do  not 
look  to  a  party  press  that  is  doing  what  it  can  to  draw  forth  an 
opinion  favorable  to  the  cause  which  it  advocates,  but  look  to 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY   AND   SOCIAL  PROGRESS    63 

the  established  interests,  the  intellectual  character,  and  the 
moral  and  religious  sense  of  the  people,  which  the  whole  press, 
in  all  the  variety  of  its  departments,  has  contributed  to  form, 
and  from  them  estimate  what  the  common  judgment,  hi  the  last 
result,  must  be. 

Public  opinion,  in  our  country,  indulges  in  no  abstract  specu 
lations:  it  leaves  them  to  the  dreams  of  the  theorist.  In  the  full 
enjoyment  of  its  own  unobstructed  freedom,  it  is  never  clamor 
ous,  it  is  never  violent.  It  moves  only  on  great  occasions,  and 
under  the  pressure  of  some  stern  necessity;  but,  when  it  does 
move,  it  is  irresistible;  it  bears  down  all  opposition  before  it.  The 
demagogue  frequently  attempts  to  imitate  the  incipient  stages 
of  this  movement,  by  an  artificial  agitation  of  the  masses.  Yet 
his  imposture  is  sure  to  be  detected  in  the  end,  by  the  fraudful 
expedients  to  which  he  resorts  in  order  to  sustain  that  continued 
excitement  in  which  alone  he  can  live.  Public  opinion  neither 
countenances  such  expedients,  nor  desires  the  agitation  which 
they  provoke.  To  it,  all  agitation  is  incidental,  and  results  from 
extraneous  causes,  or  from  its  partial  manifestations.  Sovereign 
in  itself,  it  seeks  not  the  aid  of  violently  excited  feeling,  and  when 
it  unequivocally  manifests  itself,  all  agitation  ceases,  and  the 
stream  of  events  rolls  quietly  on. 

It  is  when  the  course  of  the  waters  is  obstructed,  and  they  are 
accumulating  behind  the  obstruction,  that  this  artificial,  this 
counterfeit  agitation  begins.  It  is  then  that  every  monstrous 
thing,  little  and  great,  which  peoples  the  flood,  swells  into  unnat 
ural  dimensions,  and  each,  from  the  small  fry  to  the  leviathan, 

"  Hugest  that  swims  the  ocean  stream," 

creates  for  itself  its  particular  whirlpool  and  circle  of  bubble  and 
foam,  deceiving  the  inconsiderate  spectator  into  the  belief  that 
all  this  is  the  agitation  of  the  onward  rolling  flood,  the  indication 
of  the  natural  tendency  and  pressure  of  the  mighty  mass.  Yet 
let  but  the  master-mind,  which  alone  is  competent  to  view  the 
entirety  ab  extra,  open  the  sluice-way,  or  the  accumulating  wave 
break  the  obstruction  down,  and  the  tide  rolls  tranquilly  on, 
swallowing  up  in  its  prevailing  current,  whirlpool,  bubble,  and 
foam,  and  little  monster  and  great,  and  bearing  them  all  quietly 
off  to  the  ocean  of  eternal  oblivion. 


64  JOB   DURFEE 

This  is  public  opinion;  the  gravitation  of  the  general  mass  of 
mind  through  all  its  institutions  and  interest  towards  its  eternal 
centre;  and  when  it  so  gravitates,  it  is  always  right;  but  this 
artificial  agitation  is  generally  wholly  individual,  and  when  it  is 
such,  it  is  always  wrong;  since  its  object,  whatever  may  be  the 
pretext,  is  wholly  selfish.  It  is  only  when  the  agitation  is  natural, 
spontaneous,  and  comes  from  an  effort  to  express  the  common 
wants  and  desires  of  a  people,  and  is  conducted  with  a  religious 
reverence  for  public  morals,  for  good  order,  and  all  truth,  that 
it  is  ever  the  true  harbinger  of  a  genuine  and  enduring  public 
opinion.  A  public  opinion,  based  upon  the  generally  received 
ideas  of  morality,  religion,  and  law,  doth  in  fact  constitute  the 
common  conscience  of  a  people;  and  it  is  this  conscience  which 
in  every  great  and  trying  emergency  makes  heroes  or  cowards  of 
us  all,  as  we  may  chance  to  be  right  or  wrong. 

It  was  a  deep  religious  and  moral  feeling  of  this  sort,  for  the 
first  time  brought  into  general  activity  by  the  diffusion  of  the 
Scriptures  through  the  agency  of  the  Press,  which  in  the  sixteenth 
century  commenced  and  carried  on  the  great  work  of  religious 
reformation.  The  obstructions  to  its  efforts  were  mountainous, 
and  a  deep  and  wide  searching  agitation  went  before  it,  often 
mingling  error  with  truth.  It  touched,  it  moved  that  principle 
which  lies  beneath  the  deepest  foundations  of  all  that  is  human, 
and  at  once  all  social  institutions  were  agitated  as  by  an  earth 
quake.  It  taught  the  human  to  give  place  to  the  divine.  It 
dashed  government  against  government,  institution  against 
institution,  man  against  man;  and  urged  on  that  series  of  reli 
gious  revolutions,  which  for  ages  shook  all  Europe  to  its  centre. 
It  passed  from  religion  into  philosophy;  it  took  form  in  politics; 
it  produced  its  consequences  in  this  country;  it  exploded,  with 
most  murderous  effect,  the  combustible  monarchy  of  France, 
and  is  to  this  day,  with  almost  undiminished  energy,  passing 
down  its  tremulous  agitations  through  the  present  into  the 
boundless  future.  It  changed  the  aspect  of  Christendom;  it  estab 
lished  Protestantism  and  Protestant  states,  and  reformed 
Romanism  itself. 

Nobody  can  doubt  that  all  these  changes  were  the  necessary 
results  of  the  discovery  of  the  art  of  printing.  They  date  from 
the  commencement  of  the  reformation;  but  the  reformation  could 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY   AND   SOCIAL  PROGRESS     65 

not  have  succeeded  except  by  the  aid  of  this  art.  Before  this 
discovery,  it  had  been  repeatedly  attempted  both  in  church  and 
out  of  church,  and  the  attempts  had  failed;  but  after  this  dis 
covery,  it  was  attempted  by  a  poor  obscure  monk  in  Germany, 
and  the  attempt  did  not  fail.  It  began  in  the  social  mind,  and 
extended  itself,  after  much  agitation,  by  a  regular  and  orderly 
process,  through  the  legitimate  legislation  of  each  community, 
out  into  state  and  church. 

The  creation  of  means  by  which  the  common  mind,  in  every 
country  of  Christendom,  may  in  an  orderly  manner  produce 
every  desirable  and  necessary  change  in  government,  is  one  of 
the  important  results  of  this  discovery;  but  its  general  social 
results  have  been  no  less  important. 

Let  us  go  back,  if  we  can,  to  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  cen 
tury.  Let  us  place  ourselves  in  the  bosom  of  that  country  whence 
all  our  political  and  social  institutions  are  directly  or  indirectly 
derived;  nay,  from  which  all  our  ideas  of  legal  right  and  duty,  of 
liberty  and  law,  proceed;  and  now,  as  in  the  midst  of  that  cen 
tury,  let  us  see  what  the  condition  of  the  common  mind  is  with 
out  the  aid  of  this  art.  The  first  thing,  then,  that  must  strike 
our  attention,  is  the  general  apathy  and  indifference  of  the  mass 
around  us,  as  to  all  matters  of  general,  social  and  political  impor 
tance.  There  is  no  press,  there  are  no  newspapers,  no  periodicals, 
political,  religious,  literary  or  scientific.  In  the  place  of  the  light 
which  should  come  from  these  sources  on  the  common  mind,  a 
profound  darkness  prevails,  beneath  which,  all  thought  and  ac 
tion  still  rest  in  primeval  slumber.  But  this  is  not  all;  there  are 
no  books  in  circulation  or  use,  save  those  few  that  are  transcribed 
on  parchment  by  the  slow  and  tedious  operations  of  the  pen.  If 
we  enter  their  public  libraries,  the  precious  manuscripts  are 
chained  to  the  tables,  or  are  guarded  with  the  vigilance  of  armed 
sentinels.  If  we  enter  their  schools,  the  child  is  learning  his 
alphabet  from  a  written  scroll  furnished  him  by  his  master. 
What  a  mass  of  ignorance;  aye,  and  of  necessary  bondage!  How 
eagerly  the  million  multitudes  look  up  to  the  learned  few  for 
light  and  guidance!  With  what  intensity  of  attention  do  they 
hang  on  the  utterance  of  their  lips,  and  how  carefully  do  they 
treasure  up,  in  their  memories  of  iron,  the  oracles  that  fall  on 
their  ears !  Ah !  these  are  days  when  it  well  behoves  the  learned 


66  JOB   DURFEE 

to  take  heed  what  they  say.  They  are  rulers  of  necessity,  if  not 
of  choice,  and  their  words  are  law;  and  well  may  they  subject 
themselves  to  some  general  rules  of  thought  and  speech,  and 
become  a  corporate  community,  sacerdotal  or  other,  that  the 
masses  may  take  organization  beneath  them.  Well  is  it  for 
humanity  and  human  progress  that  they  have  this  absolute 
masterdom,  and  can  hold,  in  unqualified  subjection,  the  blind 
passions  and  terrible  energies  that  are  slumbering  under  them! 
Now  let  us  return  to  this  our  day  and  generation,  and  — 

What  a  change !  The  press  is  pouring  forth  its  torrents  of  truth 
or  falsehood;  the  land  is  whitened  with  its  daily  sheets;  the 
labors  of  a  whole  literary  life  may  be  purchased  by  an  hour's 
labor  of  the  mechanic;  reading  is  the  pastime  of  man,  woman, 
and  child,  of  prince  and  peasant;  and  strange  voices,  laden  with 
strange  thoughts,  come  thick  on  the  classic  ear,  from  cottage, 
and  garret,  and  cellar.  Where  is  that  awful  intensity  of  atten 
tion,  that  necessary  and  salutary  subjection  of  the  masses  to  the 
learned  few?  Gone !  gone  never  to  return !  Every  individual  has 
become  an  original  centre  of  thought;  and  thought  is  everywhere 
tending  to  clash  with  thought,  and  action  with  action.  What  is 
it  that  preserves  order  in  the  midst  of  all  this  tendency  to  anar 
chy?  Why,  it  is  done  by  that  public  opinion  which  subsists  from 
the  organized  whole,  and  which  the  press  itself  has  created.  It 
is  that  public  opinion,  which,  by  its  mere  vis  inertias,  sustains 
the  law,  and  holds  the  struggling  demon  of  discord  down.  It 
takes  the  place  of  the  learned  of  old;  and  how  important  it  is 
that  its  genuine  authority  should  be  sustained,  and  that  no 
demagogue  or  insane  enthusiast  should  be  permitted  to  impose 
on  the  world  its  counterfeit! 

This  invention  came  not  from  legislation,  but  on  the  contrary, 
from  the  independent  progress  of  science  and  art.  Unaided  by 
human  policy,  it  organized  for  itself  an  empire  within  the  privacy 
of  the  human  mind;  and,  gradually  extending  its  dominion  from 
spirit  outward  into  matter,  brought  human  legislation,  at  last, 
to  follow  reluctantly  in  the  steps  of  its  progress.  And  when,  at 
length,  the  old  world  became  too  limited  for  the  intellectual 
growth  which  it  had  generated,  or  ancient  institutions  so  incor 
porated  with  the  life  of  nations  as  not  to  admit  of  that  change 
which  its  irrepressible  expansion  required,  it  was  then  that  the 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS    67 

excess  of  this  growth  sought  for  and  found  in  the  newly  discov 
ered  western  world,  an  ample  theatre  for  its  enlargement. 

A  world  newly  discovered!  and  how?  Why,  by  the  progressive 
improvement  of  the  art  of  navigation,  aided  by  the  then  recent 
discovery  or  application  of  the  virtues  of  the  magnet;  an  art 
which  had  taken  its  birth  at  the  first  stage  of  the  progressive 
humanity,  and  which  has  proceeded,  pari  passu,  with  other  arts, 
under  a  common  law  of  progress,  and  which  consequently  had  its 
corresponding  discovery  at  this  very  juncture  of  affairs.  Under 
the  government  of  Divine  Providence,  all  is  order  and  law;  and 
notwithstanding  the  occasional  outbreaks  of  human  passion,  and 
the  perversity  of  the  human  will,  that  government  compels  its 
own  puny  creatures,  whatever  may  be  their  motives,  or  however 
widely  they  may  err,  to  shape  their  actions,  at  last,  to  its  own 
grand  train  of  events,  and  to  carry  out  and  fulfil  its  own  great 
designs. 

All  three  of  those  wonderful  inventions,  gunpowder,  printing, 
and  the  compass,  were  necessary  to  the  successful  establishment 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  colonies  on  these  shores.  A  number  of  tem 
pest-driven  Northmen  doubtless  discovered  and  colonized  them 
in  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century;  but  their  discovery  was 
premature.  It  came  not  in  the  logical  order  of  progress.  The 
colonists  necessarily  failed  to  effect  a  permanent  establishment. 
Their  intercourse  with  the  mother  country  was  fraught  with 
every  peril  of  uncertainty;  for,  over  fog- wrapt  surge,  or  beneath 
cloud-invested  sky,  they  wandered  without  compass  or  guide. 
The  shores  themselves  were  occupied  by  ferocious  savages,  and 
fire-arms  were  wanting  to  subdue  them.  And  then,  what  availed 
it  to  add  the  forest  and  barbarism  of  the  new  world  to  the  forest 
and  semi-barbarism  of  the  old?  The  invention  of  printing  was 
yet  wanting  to  reform  the  general  mind  of  Europe,  and  to  gener 
ate  that  spirit  which  in  after  times  was  to  go  forth  to  establish  its 
emancipation  on  these  shores,  under  the  auspices  of  institutions 
to  be  formed  from  all  that  was  select  and  glorious  in  the  past. 
The  establishment  and  development  of  the  institutions  under 
which  we  live,  are  due  to  no  arbitrary  enactments,  suggested  by 
abstract  speculations,  but  are  the  necessary  results  of  the  opera 
tions  of  these  discoveries  and  inventions,  on  the  free  growth  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  idea  of  liberty  and  law. 


68  JOB   DURFEE 

Thus  the  state  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  in  the  beginning  of  the 
eleventh  century,  was  not  such  as  to  enable  the  progressive 
humanity  to  discover  these  shores,  and  to  establish  permanent 
dominion  on  this  side  the  Atlantic.  Their  accidental  discovery, 
at  that  time,  yielded  no  useful  results.  But  the  progress  of  the 
arts  and  sciences  in  the  fifteenth  century  had  been  such  as  to  fur 
nish  all  the  necessary  means  for  the  purpose;  and  the  discovery 
and  colonization  of  this  continent  followed  as  a  necessary  conse 
quence  in  the  consecutive  order  of  events.  Its  discovery  then 
took  its  place,  as  a  logical  result  of  the  grand  series  of  discoveries 
and  inventions  that  had  preceded  it,  and  thus  became  a  new 
premise,  or  broader  basis  for  the  progressive  action  of  the  race. 

I  might  here  dwell  on  the  consequences  of  the  discovery  of 
America,  and  its  settlement  by  civilized  communities.  I  might 
show  how  those  consequences  reacted  on  the  arts  and  sciences 
themselves,  on  the  relations  of  nations,  on  their  internal  polities, 
their  domestic  habits,  and  social  enjoyments;  shaping  their  insti 
tutions  and  controlling  their  legislation.  But  I  deem  further 
historical  illustrations  unnecessary.  The  great  truth  that  human 
progress  is  the  result  of  an  ever-active  law,  manifesting  itself 
chiefly  in  scientific  discovery  and  invention,  and  thereby  con 
trolling  legislation,  and  giving  enduring  improvement  to  all 
social  and  political  institutions,  cannot  be  a  subject  of  historical 
question  or  doubt.  It  is  a  law  as  palpable  in  the  history  of  the 
social  mind,  as  the  law  of  gravitation  in  the  movement  of  matter. 
Indeed,  I  should  feel  that  I  owed  a  serious  apology  to  my  hearers 
for  having  detained  them  so  long  on  this  point,  were  it  not  for 
certain  extravagant  ideas  which  seem  to  be  rife  in  the  land.  The 
advocates  of  those  ideas  would  teach  us  that  there  is  an  absolute, 
undefinable  popular  sovereignty,  which  can,  in  a  manner  its  own, 
and  at  any  moment,  carry  a  certain  supposed  natural  equality 
into  social  and  political  life,  and  thereby  elevate  poor  human 
nature,  however  rude  and  degraded  its  condition,  at  once,  as  by 
a  sort  of  magic,  into  a  state  of  supreme  and  absolute  perfection. 
When  this  sovereignty  does  not  itself  act  to  this  end,  it  invokes 
the  legislature,  which  is  supposed  to  be  competent  to  do  nearly 
as  much.  No  doubt  government  can  do  much;  it  can  suppress 
insurrection,  it  can  repel  invasion,  it  can  enforce  contracts,  pre 
serve  the  peace,  concentrate  and  protect  the  existing  arts;  but 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY  AND   SOCIAL  PROGRESS    69 

all  this  is  to  organize,  and  sustain  organization,  and  not  to  estab 
lish  the  natural  equality.  Yet  this  is  all  that  government  can  do 
to  promote  human  improvement;  but  in  doing  this,  it  does  but 
act  in  obedience  to  that  law,  by  which  God  governs  in  the  prog 
ress  of  the  race. 

The  idea  that  legislation  necessarily  acts  an  inferior  part  in 
human  progress,  that  this  progress  is  governed  by  a  law  that 
overrules  and  controls  political  sovereignty,  may  be  humbling 
indeed  to  the  demagogue,  who  would  make  everything  bend  to 
the  popular  will.  But  there  this  law  is,  an  undoubted  and  in 
controvertible  reality,  which  will  bear  with  no  paltering,  but  de 
mands  the  obedience  of  all,  on  the  penalty  of  degradation  or  ruin. 
The  true  statesman,  the  real  promoter  of  human  progress,  at 
once  recognizes,  and  feels  proud  to  obey  it.  He  feels  that  in  so 
doing,  he  is  performing  the  most  elevated  and  dignified  of  duties. 
For  though  by  legislation  he  cannot  advance  the  entire  humanity 
a  single  step,  yet  he  may  by  legislation  materially  advance  the 
nation  for  which  he  legislates.  You  may  be  able  to  add  nothing 
to  the  light  of  the  sun,  yet  you  may  concentrate  his  rays  in  a 
focus,  and  thus  make  a  particular  point  as  bright  as  the  source 
from  which  they  emanate.  The  statesman  can  concentrate  the 
scattered  arts;  he  may  carry  out  each  discovery  and  invention 
to  all  its  available  uses,  and  thus  elevate  the  nation  which  he 
serves,  to  the  head  of  the  progressive  humanity.  Yret  if  he  would 
do  this,  he  must  not  wait  to  be  driven  to  the  task,  like  a  galley 
slave,  by  the  rival  and  threatening  policy  of  foreign  governments. 
For  the  very  fact  that  they  coerce  him,  shows  that  they  are 
already  in  his  advance. 

Supposing  that  a  people  has  already  adopted  the  common  arts 
and  sciences,  as  far  as  they  are  available,  there  will  still  remain 
certain  discoveries  and  inventions  of  more  recent  date,  which 
are  not  fully  applied,  or  carried  to  their  necessary  consequences. 
Among  these,  in  modern  times,  there  has  always  been  some  one 
susceptible  of  such  universality  of  application,  as  would  seem 
to  merit  the  particular  consideration  of  statesmen.  Take,  for 
instance,  at  the  present  time,  the  steam  engine.  What  is  suscep 
tible  of  more  universal  application?  What,  bringing  out  all  its 
powers,  can  add  greater  energy  and  vigor  to  the  arm  of  govern 
ment?  What  has,  or  can  perform  greater  wonders?  Not  gun- 


70  JOB   DURFEE 

powder,  not  the  compass,  nay,  not  even  the  press.  It  may  be 
made  to  toil  in  the  field,  and  supplant  the  labor  of  the  slave.  It 
already  works  at  the  spindle,  and  the  loom,  and  the  forge,  and 
the  mine.  It  is  even  now,  whilst  I  am  speaking,  moving  over 
earth  with  the  speed  of  wings,  walking  up  the  downward  torrent, 
and  triumphantly  striding  over  the  roaring  billows  of  the 
Atlantic.  Already,  where  in  use,  has  it  reduced  the  distance  one 
half  between  man  and  man,  nation  and  nation,  of  extreme  islands 
and  continents  of  the  habitable  globe.  It  has  brought  civilization 
into  immediate  contact  with  barbarism,  and  Christianity  with 
heathenism. 

Unless  all  history  be  false,  and  the  eternal  laws  of  matter  and 
mind  nothing  but  a  dream,  there  can  be  little  danger  in  predict 
ing  too  much  for  the  progress  of  this  invention.  Indeed,  the 
danger  is,  that  the  most  extravagant  predictions  will  fall  short 
of  the  reality.  No  matter  what  government  first  applies  this 
invention  to  all  its  practical  naval  and  military  uses,  other  gov 
ernments  must  follow,  however  reluctantly,  or  cease  to  exist. 
Nay,  should  an  unwonted  apathy  seize  on  all  civilized  govern 
ments,  society  would,  at  length,  do  the  work  to  a  great  extent 
at  their  hands.  The  progress  of  this  invention  is  ever  onward, 
and  will  not  cease  until  it  has  filled  the  world  with  its  conse 
quences. 

Already  has  it  coasted  the  shores  of  India,  penetrated  its  in 
terior  by  river  or  road,  invaded  the  empire  of  China,  and  roused 
the  Chinese  mind  by  its  appalling  apparition,  from  the  long  slum 
ber  of  centuries  past.  Ere  long  it  shall  bind  subject  Asia  to 
Europe  by  bands  of  iron,  and  the  Cossack  and  the  Tartar,  whilst 
feeding  their  herds  on  the  banks  of  the  Don  and  the  steppes  of 
southern  Russia,  shall  start  with  amazement  at  the  shrill  whistle 
of  the  locomotive,  and  the  thunder  of  the  railroad  car,  as  it 
sweeps  on  toward  the  confines  of  China.  Can  the  monarchies  of 
Europe  slumber  in  security,  whilst  the  immense  Russian  empire 
is  thus  centralizing  and  condensing  its  vast  military  resources 
and  population  at  their  backs?  Never;  their  very  existence  must 
depend  upon  their  resort  to  like  means  of  defence  or  annoyance. 
And,  from  the  heart  of  every  monarchy  of  Europe,  must  diverge 
railroads  to  every  assailable  extreme;  that  when  danger  comes, 
and  come  it  must,  the  whole  war  force  of  the  nation  may  move, 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY   AND   SOCIAL  PROGRESS    71 

at  a  moment's  warning,  with  the  speed  of  wings,  to  the  extreme 
point  of  peril. 

The  governments  of  Europe  must  become  stronger  internally 
and  externally;  more  secure  within  and  more  formidable  without, 
maugre  the  democratic  tendencies  by  which  they  are  threatened. 
Democracy  is  strong,  but  here  is  a  power  still  stronger,  that  will 
have  its  course.  It  is  a  power  with  which  governments  will  and 
must  organize  themselves,  at  their  peril,  whatever  may  be  their 
form.  And  when  thus  organized,  their  endurance  must  be  as  that 
of  adamant.  Organized  on  like  basis,  our  representative  democ 
racy  itself  may  be  secure;  but  if  not  thus  organized,  it  can  only 
wait,  with  as  much  quietude  as  it  may,  to  be  gradually  absorbed, 
and  finally  swallowed  up  by  the  strong  organizations  that  may 
be  brought  to  bear  upon  it.  Think  ye  that  the  military  progress 
of  this  invention  in  the  old  world  is  to  produce  no  effect  on  the 
new;  that  the  breadth  of  the  Atlantic  is  to  set  bounds  to  its 
effects?  The  breadth  of  the  Atlantic!  Why,  it  has  become  a  nar 
row  frith,  over  which  armies  may  be  ferried  in  twelve  or  fifteen 
days,  to  land  in  slave  or  non-slaveholding  States,  at  option;  and 
that  power,  "whose  home  is  on  the  deep,"  already  transports 
over  her  watery  empire,  on  the  wings  of  this  invention,  her  vic 
torious  cannon.  Other  governments  are  little  behind  her  in  the 
application  of  this  power.  Thus  menaced,  have  we  strength  to 
do  our  duty  with  dignity?  Can  we  much  longer  be  governed  by 
factions? 

I  am  not  suggesting  a  course  of  policy;  I  am  simply  carrying 
our  premises  to  their  necessary  consequences;  and  to  that  end  I 
ask:  If  we  continue  a  free  and  independent  people,  must  we  not 
organize  ourselves  on  the  basis  which  this  invention  affords? 
Can  we  avoid  it?  Have  we  any  choice  but  to  radiate  our  country 
with  communications  for  its  defence,  that  the  whole  war  force 
of  the  nation  may  be  thrown  with  railroad  speed  on  any  point  of 
danger?  This  system  of  defence  may  not  be  adopted  till  the 
shock  of  some  foreign  invasion,  or  some  terrible  internal  convul 
sion,  forces  upon  the  government  the  necessity  of  adopting  it; 
and  then,  if  it  be  the  will  of  God  that  we  continue  one  people,  it 
will,  and  must  be  adopted.  When  it  is  done,  this  union  will  be 
complete;  its  duration  will  depend  on  no  written  scroll  of  parch 
ment;  on  no  variable  popular  breath;  its  strength  on  no  constitu- 


72  JOB   DURFEE 

tional  constructions  changing  to  suit  the  temper  of  the  times, 
but  the  constitution  itself,  resolved  by  the  law  of  progress,  shall 
take  form,  over  the  whole  face  of  the  land,  in  bands  of  iron. 

Such  must  be  the  political  progress  of  this  invention.  Govern 
ment,  in  this  country,  has  as  yet  done  nothing,  but  society  has 
done  much.  True  to  itself  and  its  highest  interests,  it  has  been 
prompt  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  progress.  It  has  already  ex 
tended,  and  still  continues  to  extend  the  application  of  this 
sovereign  invention.  It  has  contracted,  as  it  were,  this  country 
within  half  its  former  space.  It  has  made  a  sparse  population 
dense,  and  if  a  dense  population  has  its  evils,  as  in  large  cities  it 
certainly  has,  the  same  invention  offers  an  antidote.  It  can, 
without  disadvantage,  render  those  populations  sparse.  It  can 
combine  the  morality  and  the  occupation  of  a  rural  with  the 
intellectual  activity  of  an  urban  population.  It  will  and  must 
proceed  on  its  mission,  by  force  of  the  very  law  which  gave  it 
existence,  till  the  civilization  of  Christendom,  on  the  basis  which 
it  affords,  has  been  fully  accomplished,  and  then,  by  force  of  the 
same  law,  will  it  bear  that  civilization  into  the  bosom  of  barbar 
ism,  christianize  the  nations,  and  establish  the  dominion  of  the 
arts  over  the  broad  face  of  earth  and  ocean. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  the  law  of  progress.  Ever  adding  to  the 
triumphs  of  intellect,  ever  expanding  the  sphere  of  civilization, 
ever  enlarging  the  domain  of  liberty  and  law,  it  began  its  political 
and  social  manifestations,  as  from  a  central  point,  in  the  sacer 
dotal  caste  of  Egypt.  It  continued  them  in  Greece,  and  there, 
with  the  fine  arts  and  liberal  sciences,  expanded  its  influence  over 
a  wider  compass.  It  reflected  its  action  thence  into  the  yet  bar 
barous  Latium.  It  created  the  civilization  of  Rome;  Rome  car 
ried  that  civilization  abroad  among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and 
enstamped  her  image  wherever  she  set  down  the  foot  of  her 
power.  Barbarism  came  to  receive  the  teachings  of  this  civiliza 
tion,  at  length  christianized,  and  to  open  a  sphere  of  action  for 
the  physical  sciences  and  useful  arts  in  the  nether  masses.  Then 
came  the  era  for  deepening  as  well  as  widening  the  action  of  this 
law,  by  the  aid  of  physical  discovery  and  invention.  Fire-arms 
resolved  the  feudal  system  into  a  community  of  nations.  The 
press  inspired  that  community  with  a  common  soul.  The  com 
pass  revealed  this  western  world,  and  pioneered  to  these  shores 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY   AND   SOCIAL   PROGRESS    73 

the  select  mind  and  choicest  institutions  of  Europe.  It  still  urged 
on  its  discoveries;  it  has  nearly  completed  the  exploration  of  the 
globe.  And  now  comes  this  invention  of  Watt  to  perfect  what 
these  discoveries  have  begun,  and  then  to  penetrate  into  every 
part  of  the  world,  and  to  carry  a  Christian  civilization  wherever  it 
penetrates.  Springing,  armed  for  its  mission,  from  the  head  of  the 
progressive  humanity,  it  cometh  forth  the  genuine  offspring  of 
that  one  Eternal  Reason  which  hath  ruled  through  all  ages  past. 
It  embraceth  within  itself,  struggling  for  utterance,  the  history 
of  millenniums  to  come.  It  standeth  before  the  portals  of  the 
future,  but  as  no  veiled  Isis,  as  no  mute  and  motionless  Harpoc- 
rates.  It  hath  a  language  its  own;  and  as  it  moveth  to  its  task, 
it  talketh  freely  of  its  mission.  Thou  unambiguous  prophet! 
what  a  voice  for  the  future  speaketh  from  the  expanding  volume 
of  thy  force!  What  a  tale  to  the  future  is  foretokened  in  the 
movements  of  thy  demon  strength !  Great  fashioner  of  the  des 
tinies  of  nations!  Thou  hast  hardly  commenced  thy  career  of 
victory;  but  when  it  is  finished,  all  lands  and  all  seas  shall  lie 
beneath  thy  feet,  at  once  conquered  and  glorified  by  thy  con 
quest  ! 

And  now,  gentlemen,  if  such  be  the  law  of  human  progress,  if 
it  must  thus  ever  operate  from  the  past  into  the  present,  and 
through  the  present  to  the  future,  and  as  by  a  sort  of  logical 
process,  what  becomes  of  those  doctrines  of  social  and  political  re 
form,  with  which  our  land  is  now  so  rife,  and  with  which  the  pub 
lic  ear  is  so  incessantly  abused?  What  becomes  of  those  ideas 
of  a  natural,  absolute,  unlimited  and  uncontrollable  popular 
sovereignty,  which  is  at  once  to  bring  humanity  to  perfection  by 
establishing  a  natural  liberty  and  a  natural  equality  in  social  and 
political  life?  There  may  be  a  dire  clashing  among  some  of  the 
ideas  that  are  thus  brought  forcibly  together;  but  the  wise  advo 
cates  of  these  doctrines  see  it  not,  feel  it  not.  They  have  sundry 
naked  abstractions,  which  they  have  created  for  themselves,  or 
others  for  them,  upon  which,  by  their  own  unassisted  wisdom, 
they  hope  to  build  up  society  anew,  on  an  improved  plan.  They 
would  cut  clear  from  the  past;  they  would  establish  a  new  theory 
of  human  nature,  and  base  a  human  progress  upon  ideas  and 
laws  their  own.  Well!  let  them  do  it;  but  let  them  do  it,  as  they 
must,  with  material  their  own.  Let  them  create  their  world,  and 


74  JOB  DUBFEE 

their  man  and  woman,  after  their  own  image,  and  then,  on  their 
principles,  run  their  course  of  events  in  rivalry  with  that  of 
Divine  Providence.  But  let  them  not  lay  their  hands  on  those 
whom  God  has  created  after  his  image,  and  who  are  moving  on 
to  their  high  destiny  under  his  divine  guidance.  Let  them  not 
undertake  to  substitute  their  will  for  His,  their  laws  for  His,  over 
any  except  their  own,  and  we  shall  then  know  what  that  progress 
is  about  which  they  are  now  so  abundantly  eloquent. 

In  their  estimation,  all  social  and  political  institutions  can  be 
removed,  by  their  sovereign  wills,  with  the  same  ease  that  you 
take  the  glove  from  your  hand,  and  any  of  their  own  imaginings 
substituted  in  their  place.  Their  abstractions  have  no  reference 
to  the  influence  of  the  past  on  the  present;  no  reference  to  the 
existing  social  or  political  organizations  which  have  grown  out 
of  by-gone  centuries;  and  it  is  not  strange  that  they  are  utterly 
astonished  to  find,  when  they  attempt  to  carry  them  into  effect, 
that  they  are  entering  into  conflict  with  all  that  the  past  has 
done  for  us.  And  then  it  is  very  natural  for  them  to  proceed, 
from  lauding  their  own  principles,  to  the  abuse  of  the  past;  to 
the  abuse  of  all  our  ancestral  institutions  and  social  and  political 
ideas,  as  antiquated,  and  as  obstructions  to  human  progress. 

Gentlemen,  the  present  state  of  human  progress  is  a  child,  of 
which  the  hoary  past  is  the  venerable  father.  And  the  child 
bears  the  image  and  feels  the  pulsating  blood,  and  enjoys  the 
patrimony  of  its  sepulchred  parent.  There  is  not  an  institution, 
or  science,  or  art,  of  any  practical  value,  nothing  of  the  good  or 
true,  in  social  or  political  life,  that  has  not  come  down  to  us  as  a 
creation,  or  as  a  result  of  the  labors  and  achievements  of  the 
venerated  dead;  the  dead,  not  of  modern  times  merely,  but  of 
far-distant  antiquity.  The  blood  of  ThermopylaB,  of  Marathon, 
and  Platea,  flowed  not  in  vain  for  us.  Homer  sung,  Plato 
mused,  and  Socrates  moralized,  for  our  benefit.  For  us  Rome 
went  forth  in  her  invincible  legion  to  conquer  and  humanize; 
for  us  Roman  wisdom  planned  and  Roman  valor  fought,  and 
laid  broad  and  deep  the  foundations  of  Christendom.  Aye,  some 
thing  even  of  our  nearer  selves  appears  in  the  action  of  the  dis 
tant  past  That  blood,  which  now  circulates  warm  through  the 
Anglo-American  heart,  may  be  traced  through  centuries  of  light 
and  shadow,  of  triumph  and  trial,  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  line.  For 


SCIENTIFIC   DISCOVERY  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS    75 

us  it  struggled  under  the  Norman  rule,  and  created  our  idea  of 
liberty  and  law;  for  us  it  struck  the  harp  of  heaven  in  Milton,  of 
nature  in  Shakespeare,  and  proclaimed  the  laws  of  the  universe 
in  the  philosophy  of  Newton.  O!  let  us  build  monuments  to  the 
past.  Let  them  tower  on  mound  and  mountain;  let  them  rise 
from  the  corners  of  our  streets,  and  in  our  public  squares,  that 
childhood  may  sport  its  marbles  at  their  basements,  and  lisp  the 
names  of  the  commemorated  dead,  as  it  lisps  the  letters  of  its 
alphabet.  Thus  shall  the  past  be  made  to  stand  out  in  a  monu 
mental  history,  that  may  be  seen  by  the  eye,  and  touched  by  the 
hand.  Thus  shall  it  be  made  to  subsist  to  the  senses,  as  it  still 
lives  in  the  organization  of  the  social  mind;  an  organization  from 
which  its  errors  have  died  out,  or  are  dying,  and  in  which  nothing 
but  its  Herculean  labors  do,  or  are  to  endure.  Yes,  let  us  sanctify 
the  past,  and  let  no  hand,  writh  sacrilegious  violence,  dare  mar 
its  venerable  aspect.  Change  indeed  must  come,  but  then  let  it 
come  by  force  of  the  necessary  law  of  progress.  So  shall  the  pres 
ent  still  ever  build  and  improve  on  a  patrimony  formed  by  the 
deeds  of  heroic  virtue,  and  the  labors  of  exalted  intellect.  So 
shall  the  great  and  glorious  be  added  to  the  great  and  glorious, 
and  the  labors  of  the  illustrious  dead  still  be  made  fruitful  by  the 
labors  of  the  illustrious  living,  time  without  end. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  that  inheritance  which  has  come  down 
to  us  from  the  past,  worthy  to  be  honored  by  every  philanthropic 
feeling  for  the  present,  and  cherished  by  every  hope  for  the 
future.  And  now  do  these  theorists  expect  us  to  renounce  this 
patrimony,  and  go  and  build  on  their  barren  abstractions?  — 
commence  a  new  progress  on  their  empty  expectations?  And 
shall  we  do  it?  No,  never,  never,  whilst  humanity,  through  her 
grand  organization  of  nations,  yields  a  necessary  obedience  to  the 
laws  of  the  Supreme  Reason,  or  Nature,  through  her  universal 
frame  of  worlds,  stands  fast  in  the  laws  of  her  God! 


THE    CONNECTION   BETWEEN   SCIENCE   AND 

RELIGION 

BY  ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Massachusetts,  at  Harvard  University, 
August  28,  1845. 

MY  friend  and  classmate,1  who  addressed  you  on  your  last 
anniversary,  discoursed  to  you  wisely  and  eloquently  on  the  con 
nection  between  moral  culture  and  literary  success  and  eminence. 
I  heartily  thank  him,  that  he  has  left  open  for  me  a  kindred  vein 
of  thought,  richer  still,  though  to  be  worked,  I  fear,  with  a  skill 
inferior  to  his.  I  refer  to  the  connection  between  science  and 
religion,  —  a  connection  obvious  when  theoretically  considered, 
and  capable  of  actual  verification  in  the  authentic  history  of 
science;  enjoying  indeed,  over  a  similar  view  of  literature,  this 
advantage,  that  literary  worth  is  a  matter  of  individual  taste, 
and,  if  people  choose  to  admire  Voltaire  or  worship  Goethe,  none 
can  gainsay  them,  while  every  new  discovery  or  generalization 
in  science  is  a  fixed  fact  in  the  annals  of  the  race,  and  every  non- 
discoverer  in  the  walks  of  science  is  an  equally  fixed  and  indis 
putable  negative  fact.  Think  not  that  I  appear  on  this  occasion 
in  a  professional  capacity,  and  am  going  to  inflict  a  sermon  on 
an  audience  convened  for  a  widely  different  purpose.  Elsewhere 
it  is  my  province  to  present  religion  in  queenly  robes,  and  with  a 
voice  of  absolute  command;  here  I  ask  you  to  regard  her  merely 
as  a  handmaid.  Yet,  should  her  fidelity  as  a  servant  win  any 
heart  to  do  homage  to  her  as  a  sovereign,  I  shall  have  attained 
my  ultimate  desire  and  aim.  But  my  design  is  to  offer  you  such 
a  view,  as  might  be  presented  by  a  professedly  scientific  man  of 
a  sufficiently  catholic  mind  to  take  religion  into  the  circle  of  the 
sciences. 

There  is  a  wide  difference  between  knowledge  and  science. 
Isolated  facts  and  phenomena  are  the  materials  of  knowledge; 
science  ascertains  their  laws,  relations,  and  harmonies.    Knowl 
edge  may  be  acquired,  retained,  and  transmitted  by  any  man  of 
1  George  Putnam.  —  EDS. 


CONNECTION   BETWEEN   SCIENCE   AND   RELIGION     77 

ordinary  powers  and  good  memory;  science  is  the  creation  of  the 
few  great  minds,  one  of  whom  suffices  to  shed  lustre  upon  an  age. 
Of  men  popularly  deemed  scientific,  and  eminently  so,  the 
greater  part  make  no  contributions  to  the  progress  of  science, 
and  are  incapable  of  aggression  upon  the  vast  domain  yet  uncon- 
quered.  Of  this  class  are  many  of  those,  who  have  great  learning, 
write  good  books,  and  repeat  difficult  experiments,  whose  sole 
work  is  to  decant  old  wine  into  new  bottles,  while  others  have 
planted  the  grapes,  and  trodden  the  wine-press.  To  the  same 
class  belong  many  of  the  discoverers  of  new  facts  and  the  invent 
ors  of  new  processes,  —  men  of  great  skill  and  adroitness,  but  not 
necessarily  of  creative  power.  Science  is  the  classification  of 
facts  under  principles,  —  of  phenomena  under  essential  laws ; 
and  the  progress  of  science  consists  in  successive  generalizations, 
each  surpassing  all  that  have  preceded  it  in  comprehensiveness 
and  simplicity.  The  scientific  discoverer  is  he  who  traces  out 
laws  or  harmonies  before  unknown,  or  enlarges  the  scope  of  those 
already  recognized.  I  propose,  first,  to  exhibit  to  you  the  essen 
tial  agency  in  this  work  of  just  and  adequate  religious  ideas  and 
sentiments,  and  then  to  justify  my  position  by  a  cursory  survey 
of  the  history  of  science. 

Scientific  truths  are  not  written  upon  the  surface  of  nature; 
nor  can  they  be  ascertained  by  mere  felicitous  conjecture,  which 
might  range  forever,  and  range  in  vain,  among  the  numberless 
theories  possible  in  every  case.  A  false  theory  never  suggests  the 
true.  Yes  and  A7o  are  the  only  answers  which  the  scientific 
inquirer  draws  from  nature;  and  whether  he  ever  gets  a  Yes, 
depends  on  the  shaping  of  his  questions.  The  welcome  answer  is 
for  him  alone,  who  knows  how  to  ask.  In  the  fields  of  science,  one 
reaps  as  he  sows,  —  takes  what  he  brings.  The  most  patient 
research  cannot  initiate  into  the  mysteries  of  nature  him  whose 
antecedent  conceptions  of  the  objects  of  science  are  vague,  nar 
row,  or  exaggerated.  The  successful  inquirer  must  come  to  the 
investigation  of  facts,  with  adequate  antecedent  ideas,  —  with 
the  general  outlines  of  his  theory  distinctly  traced  in  his  own 
mind.  But  whence  is  he  to  derive  those  antecedent  ideas?  How 
shall  he  frame  his  questions?  How  can  he  descend  to  the  investi 
gation  of  parts  and  details  with1  just  conceptions  of  the  whole? 

1  So  reads  the  printed  text.  The  author  probably  wrote  "without."  —  EDS. 


78  ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY 

Analogy  must  ask  his  questions,  and  shape  his  theories.  And 
what  is  the  basis  of  analogy?  It  is  the  general  plan  of  the  divine 
administration,  —  the  traits  of  the  infinite  mind  portrayed  in 
the  constitution  and  course  of  nature.  The  attributes  of  God  are 
the  ultimate  cause,  —  his  ideas,  the  archetypes,  of  all  things. 
Just  and  lofty  views  of  his  character  furnish  therefore  starting- 
points  and  data  for  philosophical  research.  They  indicate  the 
direction  in  which  truth  lies.  They  supply  the  essential  outlines 
and  elements  of  every  department  of  science.  On  the  other  hand, 
ignorance  or  non-recognition  of  the  divine  attributes  prompts 
fruitless  questionings,  leads  into  mazy  paths  that  terminate 
nowhere,  makes  up  false  issues,  and  passes  by  truth  within  grasp, 
in  the  vain  effort  to  arrive  at  those  occult  forces,  which  can  only 
be  resolved  into  the  varied  agency  of  the  Creator. 

To  commence  with  the  simple  idea  of  an  infinite  First  Cause, 
where  this  has  been  ignored,  man  has  always  philosophized,  as  if 
he  were  the  centre  of  the  universe;  and  his  theories  have  all 
partaken  of  his  own  littleness,  —  his  system  of  nature  has  been 
dwarfed,  his  conceptions  narrow  and  inadequate.  So  it  was  in 
the  ancient  world.  The  boundless  heavens  were  but  a  jewelled 
canopy  for  the  dwellers  upon  earth,  and  the  whole  realm  of  mat 
ter  and  of  mind  was  seen  as  through  a  diminishing  lens.  But  the 
conception  of  an  infinite  Creator  sends  the  beholder  back  from 
the  centre  to  his  true  place  in  the  remote  circumference  of  the 
universe;  and  its  bounds  at  once  expand  and  recede  before  his 
enlarged  vision.  The  stars,  from  spangles  on  the  curtain  of  night, 
grow  into  clusters  of  rejoicing  worlds;  and  the  immeasurable 
Creator  is  mirrored  forth  in  majesty  and  grandeur  from  every 
scene  of  nature  and  of  life. 

Similar  is  the  effect  on  science  of  the  distinct  recognition  of 
the  divine  unity.  Ancient  philosophy  could  acquiesce  in  jarring 
elements  and  conflicting  systems.  It  was  content  with  partial 
generalizations.  It  sought  not  uniformity.  It  presupposed  no 
harmony  in  nature.  But  modern  science  is  led  on,  by  faith  in 
the  divine  unity,  from  complex  to  simple  laws,  from  lower  to  ever 
higher  stages  of  generalization.  It  assumes  unity  of  purpose  and 
result  as  the  basis  of  its  theories.  Its  aim  is  to  trace  out  in  crea 
tion  the  undivided  Godhead.  Its  whole  progress  is  the  develop 
ment  of  more  and  more  perfect  and  comprehensive  harmonies. 


CONNECTION   BETWEEN   SCIENCE   AND   RELIGION     79 

It  is  constantly  bringing  isolated  phenomena  into  the  embrace  of 
law,  interlacing  by  subtle  filaments  of  resemblance  or  analogy 
the  most  unlike  classes  of  objects  and  tribes  of  being,  tracing  to 
their  meeting-point  divergent  lines  once  deemed  parallel.  In 
astronomy,  it  has  already  belted  the  vast  globe,  the  stars,  the 
universe,  with  the  inscription,  GOD  is  ONE  ;  and  now  it  is  seeking 
marks  of  identity  in  heat,  light,  gravitation,  the  electric,  the 
magnetic  force,  the  vital  principle,  the  medium  of  sensation  and 
of  voluntary  motion,  and  will  soon  draw  forth  from  these  hidden 
powers,  pervading  all  space  and  being,  the  echo  of  that  sublime 
truth,  with  which  it  has  girdled  the  heavens. 

Faith  in  the  boundless  benevolence  of  the  Creator  plays  a  no 
less  important  part  in  the  development  of  science.  On  this  also 
rests  the  doctrine  of  final  causes,  as  applied  to  every  form  of 
organized  existence.  From  this  is  inferred  the  beneficent  design 
and  tendency  of  all  the  adjustments  and  provisions  of  nature. 
Resting  on  the  axiom  of  religion,  GOD  is  LOVE,  as  the  basis  of  all 
its  theories,  modern  science  has  traced  the  footprints  of  a  pater 
nal  Providence  in  every  portion  of  the  outward  universe.  In  the 
economy  of  animal  and  vegetable  life,  it  has  left  no  organ,  no 
arrangement,  without  its  ascertained  use  and  end.  From  the 
darker  and  more  terrific  phenomena  of  nature,  it  has  drawn  forth 
voices  of  praise  and  gladness.  The  lightning,  no  longer  a  fiery 
winding-sheet,  is  hailed  as  a  swift-winged  minister  of  health. 
The  eclipse,  once  beheld  with  awe  and  dread,  has  become  a  sub 
lime  interlude  in  the  harmony  of  the  spheres.  The  wandering 
fires  of  the  comet  glow  no  longer  with  the  lurid  glare  of  wrath, 
but  with  rays  of  infinite  love.  Nor  can  the  impulse  thus  given  to 
inquiry  cease,  until  the  merciful  ministry  of  the  entire  economy 
of  nature  shall  be  clearly  defined  and  fully  demonstrated,  — 
until  the  record  of  the  divine  paternity  shall  be  transcribed  from 
the  New  Testament  upon  every  form  of  life  and  every  portion  of 
the  outward  universe. 

Thus  do  just  conceptions  of  the  Creator  furnish  adequate 
analogies  for  the  scientific  inquirer.  But  science  is  indebted  to 
religion,  not  only  for  the  analogy,  which  always  shapes  the  lead 
ing  question,  but  for  the  induction,  which  gives  the  final  and 
comprehensive  answer.  General  laws  and  principles,  whether  in 
physical  or  intellectual  science,  are  to  be  reached  only  by  indue- 


80  ANDREW   PRESTON   PEABODY 

tion.  Observation,  consciousness,  and  experience  are  necessarily 
limited  in  space  and  time,  and  can  give  but  partial  answers. 
Induction  extends  these  answers  through  all  space  and  all  time, 
converts  particular  facts  into  all-embracing  truths,  and  puts  the 
universe  within  the  grasp  of  science.  The  inductive  philosophy, 
though  so  obvious  that  we  can  hardly  conceive  of  a  time  when  it 
was  not  recognized,  rightly  dates  its  promulgation  with  the  age 
of  Bacon,  but  it  is  to  be  regarded  less  as  his  discovery,  than  as 
the  point  of  progress,  which  the  human  mind  had  attained,  when 
he  entered  upon  the  stage.  Aristotle  indeed  speaks  of  induction; 
but  seems  to  have  regarded  it  merely  as  a  hypothetical  and  ten 
tative  process,  and  had  no  idea  of  it  as  an  instrument  of  bound 
less  power  for  the  discovery  of  truth  and  the  increase  of  human 
knowledge. 

The  only  form  of  reasoning  recognized  for  many  ages  was  the 
syllogism,  which  adds  nothing  to  the  domain  of  science,  but 
simply  classes  separate  facts  under  laws  previously  known. 
Logic  was  thus  employed  in  the  analysis  of  such  truths  as  were 
already  the  property  of  the  human  mind,  and  not  in  the  enlarge 
ment  of  its  orbit,  and  the  expansion  of  its  sphere  of  thought.  The 
reason  of  this  undoubtedly  was  the  lack  of  a  settled  faith  in  the 
consistency,  order  and  stability  of  the  universe.  The  syllogistic 
mode  of  reasoning  had  its  birth,  when  the  heavens  and  earth 
were  cantoned  out  among  numberless  conflicting  deities,  and 
when  fickleness  and  caprice  attached  themselves  to  the  highest 
idea  of  the  divinity,  which  the  mass  even  of  philosophers  could 
reach.  And,  during  much  of  the  time  that  intervened  between 
the  promulgation  of  Christianity  and  the  Protestant  Reforma 
tion,  the  prevalent  conceptions  of  the  Creator  were  but  little 
elevated  above  those  that  had  prevailed  in  the  classic  ages.  The 
sublime  theism  of  the  Mosaic  and  the  Christian  Scriptures  devel 
oped  itself  in  the  faith  of  Christendom  by  gradual  and  slow 
approaches;  and  the  angelology  and  demonology  of  the  middle 
ages  hung  as  a  heavy  clog  on  the  excursive  powers  of  the  human 
intellect.  It  was  needful  for  the  mind  to  be  bathed,  as  it  were, 
in  Christian  ideas,  for  many  centuries,  before  it  could  look  upon 
the  system  of  nature  as  a  symmetrical  whole,  reflecting  from  a 
past  to  a  future  eternity  the  image  of  one  unchangeable  Creator. 
Nor,  till  this  stage  had  been  reached,  was  it  possible  for  the  indue- 


CONNECTION   BETWEEN   SCIENCE  AND   RELIGION     81 

live  philosophy  to  have  birth.  Induction  is  based  on  the  immut- 
ableness  of  God,  on  the  harmony  of  his  attributes,  on  the  self- 
consistency  of  his  administration.  It  is  indeed  defined  to  be 
syllogism,  with  the  unchangeableness  of  the  Creator  for  a  con 
stant  term.  I  accept  the  definition.  But  this  constant  term 
transfigures  syllogism  from  a  pander  to  scholastic  subtleties  into 
the  gatekeeper  of  the  temple  of  eternal  truth.  Its  aim  is  now 
onward  and  upward.  It  no  longer  delves  in  cloisters  among 
paltry  cabalistic  terms,  raking  over  the  accumulated  dust  and 
rubbish  of  centuries;  but  it  is  out  in  the  fields,  on  the  waters, 
among  the  stars,  —  it  goes  on  the  wings  of  the  wind,  —  it  rides 
the  lightning's  flash,  —  it  floats  on  the  ever-retreating  confines 
of  the  unexplored  and  unknown,  —  it  lifts  boldly,  yet  with  rev 
erence,  the  veil  that  hangs  over  the  throne  of  the  Omnipotent. 

Such  is  the  ministry  to  science  of  the  fundamental  doctrines 
of  Christian  theism.  This  ministry  they  can  perform  only  for 
him  who  believes  in  them;  and  must  needs  perform  it  the  most 
surely  and  effectually  for  him,  who  embraces  them,  not  with  a 
merely  intellectual  assent,  but  with  adoration  and  love.  I,  there 
fore,  next  remark  that  a  devotional  frame  of  mind  is  eminently 
favorable  to  the  pursuit  of  scientific  truth.  The  affections,  when 
fixed  on  worthy  and  lofty  objects,  instruct  the  intellect,  and 
anticipate  its  more  tardy  processes.  They  apprehend  truth  by  a 
consciousness  of  its  moral  adaptations  and  harmonies.  They 
take  intuitive  views,  which  subsequent  research  and  reasoning 
verify  and  confirm.  A  pure  moral  taste  of  itself  constitutes  a 
higher  reason,  which  seldom  misleads.  It  discerns  instinctively 
those  elements  of  fitness,  symmetry,  and  beauty,  which  are  insep 
arable  from  scientific  truth.  Thus  a  man  of  elevated  moral  and 
religious  sentiments  learns  faster  than  he  can  reason.  He  often 
knows  the  result  before  he  has  weighed  the  arguments,  so  that 
what  to  others  is  proof,  is  to  him  mere  verification.  Take  in  the 
same  department  of  science  two  persons  of  equal  natural  endow 
ments  and  mental  culture,  one  of  whom  has  developed,  the  other 
neglected  and  dwarfed  the  religious  nature;  —  you  will  find,  in 
the  first,  a  certain  aptness  and  promptitude  in  the  perception  of 
resemblances  and  analogies,  a  tendency  to  seize  at  once  upon  the 
right  point  of  view,  a  quickness  of  apprehension  outspeeding  the 
formal  steps  of  analysis  and  proof,  in  fine,  an  affinity  for  truth, 


82  ANDREW   PRESTON   PEABODY 

as  ready  and  infallible  as  that  chemical  affinity,  which  draws 
unlike  material  substances  together,  —  while,  in  the  other,  you 
will  discern  (even  with  an  equal  or  superior  aptness  for  the 
reception  of  positive  proof),  a  blindness  to  many  of  the  intrinsic 
marks  of  truth,  an  incapacity  of  anticipating  results,  and,  in 
general,  a  mechanical  condition  of  the  thinking  powers,  indicat 
ing  their  subjection  to  a  lower  class  of  laws  than  those  which 
govern  the  intellect,  touched  to  finer  issues  by  the  spirit  of  sincere 
devotion. 

Devotional  habits  also  enlarge  and  exalt  the  mind,  performing 
for  it  the  same  office  which  the  extensor  muscles  do  for  the  limbs 
of  the  body,  preserving  it  in  full  tension  and  vigor,  with  its 
excursive  powers  constantly  reaching  on  and  up  for  broader, 
loftier  views,  as  in  more  perfect  accordance  with  the  glorious 
and  infinite  majesty  of  the  Creator. 

A  devout  spirit  also  places  a  man  in  an  enviable  position  for 
the  exercise  of  his  mental  powers.  The  mind,  in  order  to  work 
to  advantage,  must  be  stable,  calm,  self-collected,  released  from 
the  tyranny  of  the  lower  appetites  and  passions,  and  bound  to 
its  true  orbit  by  a  sense  of  duty  and  accountableness.  If  it  be 
harassed  by  disturbing  forces,  its  results  are  inadequate  to  its 
capacity.  Now  devotion  puts  the  soul  in  its  true  place  towards 
both  God  and  man,  checks  its  uneasy,  restless  flights,  subdues 
appetite,  bridles  passion,  makes  conscience  supreme,  and  enlists 
mind,  heart  and  strength  in  the  earnest  pursuit  of  whatever  is 
worthy  the  interest  of  a  God-born  immortal.  "Give  me  a  place 
to  stand,"  said  Archimedes,  "and  I  will  move  the  world."  The 
devout  man  has  that  place,  at  the  blending  point  of  the  rays  of 
infinite  wisdom  and  love.  In  all  his  great,  essential  interests,  he  is 
immovably  fixed.  He  has  his  God-appointed  centre  of  activity, 
where  he  may  take  his  stand,  and  put  forth  to  the  utmost  effect 
whatever  power  he  has;  and,  if  he  be  a  great  man,  he  can  move 
the  world,  —  he  can  raise  the  world,  —  can  make  new  disclo 
sures  of  truth,  search  out  higher  laws  of  being,  carry  onward  the 
knowledge  of  the  race  towards  the  uncaused  Cause  of  all  things, 
and  enlarge  the  orbit  of  the  human  mind  towards  that  of  Him, 
whose  goings  forth  are  from  eternity. 

Such  are  some  of  the  essential  offices,  which  religion  discharges 
for  science.  To  verify  this  view,  I  will  ask  you  now  to  survey 


CONNECTION   BETWEEN   SCIENCE   AND   RELIGION    83 

with  me  the  history  of  science.  I  hope  to  show  you  that,  in  point 
of  fact,  only  men  of  religious  faith,  and  for  the  most  part  only 
devout  men,  have  been  legislators  in  the  realm  of  science,  while 
the  irreligious  and  unbelieving,  who  have  obtained  eminent 
reputation  as  scientific  men,  have  been  employed  chiefly  in 
verifying,  arranging,  and  applying  the  laws  and  principles  dis 
covered  by  a  widely  different  order  of  minds.  This  distinction 
may  be  traced  in  ancient,  no  less  than  in  modern,  times.  The 
few  great  men  of  classic  antiquity,  who  enlarged  the  bounds  of 
human  knowledge,  and  who,  even  to  our  own  day,  exercise  an 
admitted  sway  over  men's  minds,  were  all,  to  the  full  measure 
of  their  light,  reverent  and  devout.  On  the  other  hand,  the  last 
traces  of  the  influence  upon  mind  of  the  atheistical  philosophers 
of  antiquity  vanished  ages  ago.  Nay,  their  very  works  have 
perished,  and  are  known  to  us  only  by  extracts  and  references  in 
works  of  an  opposite  character.  Of  Plato,  the  almost  Christian 
theist,  we  have  voluminous  writings  extant;  of  Democritus,  the 
father  of  the  atheistical  school  of  Greek  philosophy,  who  wrote 
as  much  as  Plato,  not  a  word  remains. 

Pythagoras  and  Plato  present  a  striking  analogy  between  their 
theological  and  their  scientific  attainments.  Unlike  in  many  of 
their  speculations,  they  were  both  men  of  lofty  spiritual  yearn 
ings.  They  heard  the  still,  small  voice  of  the  Almighty  in  the 
harmony  of  the  spheres.  They  felt  the  pulsations  of  the  Supreme 
Intelligence  in  the  depths  of  their  own  consciousness.  They 
could  not  rest  in  the  low,  gross  conceptions  that  prevailed  around 
them;  but  were  spiritualists  from  the  necessity  of  noble  minds. 
Yet  they  could  not  "by  searching  find  out  God."  From  their 
low  starting-point  and  limited  means  of  culture,  they  could  not 
reach  the  idea  of  a  simple  personal  Deity;  but  acquiesced  in  a 
mystical,  dreamy  pantheism,  their  conceptions  vague  as  they 
were  vast.  And  before  their  minds  there  also  floated  visions  of 
scientific  truth  no  less  vast,  yet  no  less  vague.  Their  ideas  of  the 
system  of  nature  were  lofty,  but  intangible.  They  beheld  shad 
owy  outlines  in  the  misty  sky;  but  could  neither  define  them,  nor 
fill  them  up.  They,  therefore,  remained  in  embryo,  like  seed- 
corn  in  a  mummy-case,  till,  beneath  Christian  culture,  they  put 
forth  leaves,  blossoms,  and  rich,  ripe  fruit. 

The  annals  of  ancient  science  bear  the  name  of  but  one  truly 


84  ANDREW   PRESTON   PEABODY 

great  discoverer,  —  Archimedes;  and  all  the  records  that  we 
have  of  his  life  and  labors,  lead  us  to  regard  him  as  a  man  deeply 
penetrated  with  a  sense  of  the  infinite  God,  and  convinced,  in 
theory,  of  the  all-embracing  grasp  of  law  and  system  in  creation, 
antecedently  to  those  discoveries  which  have  made  his  name 
immortal.  There  were  others,  among  the  ancients,  who  rendered 
eminent  service  to  science  in  the  arrangement  and  classification 
of  its  materials;  but  their  methods  were  artificial,  and  adapted 
merely  to  the  preservation  of  facts  for  subsequent  use.  This  was 
the  sole  merit  of  Aristotle,  and,  in  later  times,  of  Pliny,  in  natural 
history  and  science.  This  was  all  that  Hipparchus  and  Ptolemy 
did  for  astronomy.  The  phenomena  of  the  heavens  had  been 
observed  from  the  earliest  times;  and  an  immense,  chaotic  mass 
of  facts  had  been  accumulated.  These  they  reduced  to  some 
semblance  of  order,  by  hypotheses  purely  phenomenal  as  to  their 
basis,  and  involved  and  complex  to  the  last  degree,  which  could 
not  have  had  a  momentary  hold  on  human  belief,  had  the  idea 
of  symmetry  and  perfectness  in  the  system  of  nature  once  gained 
currency.  They  established,  where  there  was  wild  anarchy  be 
fore,  a  provisional  government,  to  last  till  there  should  arise  a 
lawgiver,  who  could  write  out  the  ordinances  of  the  heavens,  and 
measure  the  paths  and  bounds  of  sun  and  star. 

The  waste  of  ancient  science  is  an  eminently  instructive  chap 
ter  of  the  history  of  mind.  A  vast  amount  of  fruitless  labor  was 
expended  in  mere  cosmogony,  which  Christian  theism  has 
stricken  from  the  list  of  sciences.  The  ancients  thought  them 
selves  bound  to  account,  by  natural  laws,  for  the  primeval  origin 
of  all  things.  Modern  science,  while  it  marks  the  phases  and 
revolutions  of  our  globe  and  system  for  countless  ages  before 
man  had  birth,  rests,  for  its  ultimate  ground,  on  the  simple 
declaration  of  Moses,  "In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens 
and  the  earth."  It  beholds  in  the  divine  fiat  an  adequate  force 
and  cause  for  the  state  of  things  where  its  last  research  termi 
nates,  and  lets  the  veil  still  rest  on  the  pristine  act  of  creative 
power.  The  author  of  that  marvellous  piece  of  smooth  sophistry, 
Vestiges  of  Creation,  has,  indeed,  sought  to  lift  the  veil;  but 
has  only  succeeded  in  showing  that  the  philosophy  of  atheism 
has  not  taken  an  onward  step  since  the  days  of  Lucretius,  and  in 
writing,  in  the  clearest  characters,  upon  his  own  labors  the 


CONNECTION   BETWEEN   SCIENCE   AND   RELIGION    85 

inscription  with  which  he  sought  to  label  the  works  of  the 
Omnipotent,  "E  nihilo  nihilfit" 

There  was  also  a  vast  waste  of  intellect  in  the  attempt  to 
disinter  the  hidden  forces  of  nature.  The  idea  of  power  was 
developed  much  earlier  than  that  of  law.  A  sense  of  immeasur 
able  power  in  creation  oppressed  the  mind,  ages  before  it  awoke 
to  the  perception  of  order  and  harmony.  Each  of  the  great 
agencies  in  the  material  world  was  thought  to  be  pervaded  by  a 
separate  inherent  force,  in  itself  a  sufficient  cause  for  its  own 
entire  class  of  phenomena;  and  the  attempted  analysis  of  these 
imagined  forces  usurped  the  time,  energy,  and  philosophical 
acumen,  which,  rightly  directed,  might  have  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  inductive  sciences.  Christian  theism  recognizes  but  one 
force,  and  that  one,  the  indwelling  and  ever-working  spirit  of 
the  Omnipotent  in  all  space  and  time,  the  same  in  the  nascent 
germ  and  the  gravitating  planet,  in  the  wavelet  of  light  from  the 
remotest  star  and  the  throbbings  of  the  human  heart.  This 
boundless  force  revealed  and  owned,  science  now  has  only  to 
trace  its  varied  modes  of  action,  and  to  read  the  unchanging  laws 
inscribed  on  creation  by  its  Author  and  Father. 

Ancient  science  also  wasted  much  of  its  strength  in  mere 
verbal  analysis.  A  large  amount  of  the  reasoning  of  the  ancients 
on  scientific  subjects  was  based  on  the  established  usus  loquendi, 
and  consisted  in  the  mere  application  of  terms,  assuming  their 
perfectness  and  adequacy,  and  the  infallible  truth  of  the  ideas 
attached  to  them.  They  inferred  the  most  comprehensive  prin 
ciples  from  the  names  currently  given  to  objects,  or  from  the 
trivial  phrases  employed  in  common  discourse.  Thus  Thales, 
when  asked,  "What  is  the  greatest  thing?"  replied,  "Space,  for 
all  other  things  are  in  the  world,  but  the  world  is  in  it,"  —  a 
puerile  conceit  based  on  the  ordinary  colloquial  use  of  the  prepo 
sition.  Aristotle's  usual  starting-point,  on  a  course  of  reasoning, 
is,  "We  say  thus  and  so  in  common  language."  I  might,  had  I 
time,  quote  numerous  examples  of  this  kind  from  him,  and  not  a 
few  from  other  ancient  writers.  This  mode  of  reasoning  resulted 
from  the  place,  which  man  then  conceived  himself  to  occupy  in 
the  creation.  His  own  ideas  were  his  only  ultimate  measure  and 
standard  of  truth.  His  highest  notions  of  the  divinity  were  sub 
ordinated  to  his  philosophy,  and  circumscribed  within  the  metes 


86  ANDREW   PRESTON   PEABODY 

and  bounds  of  an  inflexible  terminology.  There  was  no  distinct 
recognition  of  a  supreme,  independent,  self-conscious  Intelli 
gence,  from  whose  immutable  ideas,  gradually  unfolded  to  the 
reverent  and  truth-loving,  finite  minds  might  modify,  correct, 
and  enlarge  their  own  conceptions.  The  mind  of  man  was  thus 
kept  revolving  from  age  to  age  in  the  same  narrow  circle,  and 
filling  the  whole  area  of  that  circle  with  childish  sophisms.  We 
can  minister  to  the  growth  of  science,  only  by  holding  its  terms 
as  auxiliary  and  provisional,  by  modifying  them  to  meet  its 
enlarged  necessities,  and  by  deeming  no  idea  ultimate  or  abso 
lute  but  that  of  God. 

But  time  forbids  me  to  dwell  longer  on  remote  antiquity;  nor 
will  Arabian  science  claim  more  than  a  passing  notice.  The 
Mahometan  theology,  though  in  form  recognizing  the  divine 
unity,  was  coarse,  grovelling,  anthropomorphic.  It  presented  no 
large  or  lofty  views  of  the  divinity.  It  gave  the  mind  no  point  of 
support  in  its  search  after  truth.  Arabian  science  was  conse 
quently  insignificant  in  its  results  and  achievements.  It  pro 
duced  immense  and  countless  volumes;  but  they  were  collections 
of  isolated  facts,  copies  from  the  ancients,  and  prolix,  jejune 
commentaries.  The  Arabs  displayed  great  avidity  for  knowl 
edge,  but  no  power  of  generalization;  nor  have  they  left  a  single 
name  to  be  enrolled  among  the  creative  and  legislative  minds  in 
the  history  of  science. 

We  pass  to  modern  Christendom.  Here  great  discoverers  are 
not  numerous.  The  sciences,  that  may  now  be  regarded  as  the 
most  nearly  perfect,  have  been  shaped  from  chaotic  materials 
by  the  bold  and  rapid  generalizations  of  a  few  master  minds.  In 
the  kindred  sciences  of  Mechanics  and  Hydrostatics,  we  have  for 
the  chief  names  Galileo,  Pascal  and  Boyle,  by  whose  side  we  can 
place  no  fourth  as  their  equal.  Galileo  constantly  recognizes  the 
divine  presence  in  nature,  frequently  takes  the  fundamental 
truths  of  religion  for  the  premises  of  his  arguments,  and  writes 
as  one  that  is  searching  out  the  thoughts  of  God.  Pascal,  second 
to  none  in  keen  scientific  insight,  threw  his  fame  as  a  philosopher 
into  the  background  by  the  lustre  of  his  religious  character,  — 
by  his  apostolic  fervor,  saintly  purity,  and  martyrlike  self-denial. 
Boyle,  in  his  investigation  of  natural  laws,  professed  himself 
constantly  under  the  guidance  of  religious  ideas,  and  as  a  phi- 


CONNECTION   BETWEEN   SCIENCE   AND   RELIGION     87 

losopher  viewed  everything  in  its  bearing  upon  the  divine  attri 
butes  and  administration .  He,  too,  led  an  eminently  religious  life, 
expended  large  portions  of  his  income  for  the  translation  and 
diffusion  of  the  Scriptures,  labored  with  consistent  and  persever 
ing  zeal  in  all  the  then  open  departments  of  Christian  philan 
thropy,  and,  in  dying,  by  a  generous  bequest,  made  our  own 
University  the  trustee  of  his  pious  purposes  of  the  conversion 
and  instruction  of  the  North  American  Indians. 

Astronomy,  as  a  definite  and  symmetrical  science,  owes  its 
birth  to  the  successive  generalizations  of  Copernicus,  Kepler, 
and  Newton;  and  for  them  faith  held  the  torch  to  science,  — 
showed  them  the  remotest  stars  in  the  embrace  of  the  same 
guiding  Providence,  without  which  the  sparrow  falls  not  to  the 
ground,  —  prepared  them  to  embrace  laws  simple  as  the  divine 
unity,  vast  as  Omnipotence.  Copernicus  defends  his  system  of 
the  universe  by  considerations  drawn  from  the  symmetry  and 
harmony  to  be  looked  for  in  the  works  of  God.  Kepler,  in 
expounding  the  motions  of  the  planets,  calls  upon  his  readers 
to  praise  and  celebrate  with  him  the  wisdom  and  greatness  of  the 
Almighty,  and  constantly  adduces  the  divine  attributes  as  rea 
sons  for  the  laws  that  bear  his  name.  Newton  was  a  man  of 
humble  faith  and  of  simple,  childlike  piety.  He  speaks  of  science 
as  chiefly  to  be  valued,  because  it  brings  us  nearer  to  the  knowl 
edge  of  the  supreme  First  Cause.  He  finds  traces  of  the  Creator 
in  every  provision,  law,  and  harmony  of  nature;  and  closes  his 
Principia  by  a  sublime  tribute  of  praise  to  God.  His  law  of 
universal  gravitation,  in  its  unity,  simplicity,  and  comprehen 
siveness,  seems  the  last  generalization  possible  within  the  proper 
limits  of  astronomy,  though  gravitation  itself  will  no  doubt  yet 
be  proved  identical  with  other  material  forces,  and  all  the  physi 
cal  sciences  brought  into  closer  harmony  than  we  can  now  imag 
ine.  But,  since  Newton  left  the  stage,  it  has  been  work  and 
glory  enough  for  subsequent  astronomers  to  verify  and  apply  his 
theories,  —  to  develop  in  detail  the  celestial  mechanism,  which 
he  first  saw  at  a  glance.  This,  infidel  philosphers,  great  in  figures, 
like  D'Alembert  and  Laplace,  have  successfully  done.  And  such 
as  they  can  do  the  journey-work  of  science,  —  can  perfect  the 
purely  mechanical  part  of  arrangement  and  calculation;  but  it 
is  not  for  them  to  approach  the  oracles  of  truth,  and  hear  those 


88  ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY 

responses,  which,  uttered  in  the  ear  of  the  devout  philosopher, 
command  light  out  of  the  darkness  of  age-long  ignorance,  and 
order  from  the  chaos  of  ill-jointed  theories  and  obsolete  systems. 
The  existence  of  chemistry,  except  in  groping  experiments  and 
vague  surmises,  bears  date  less  than  a  century  ago;  and  many  of 
its  fundamental  laws  are  yet  undiscovered,  or  stand  in  the  form 
of  postulates,  and  need  additional  demonstration.  But  the  dis 
coverers  of  its  established  principles  fall  easily  into  the  ranks  of 
the  fathers  of  mechanical  and  astronomical  science.  To  specify 
a  few  of  these,  Black,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the  laws  of 
latent  heat,  and  for  much  of  the  earliest  light  thrown  upon  the 
chemistry  of  the  gases,  delighted  to  trace  and  exhibit  the  benefi 
cence  of  the  Creator  in  those  portions  of  the  economy  of  nature, 
which  he  brought  to  view.  Of  Lavoisier,  who  first  analyzed  the 
atmosphere,  discovered  the  properties  of  oxygen,  and  fully 
identified  the  laws  of  acidification  and  combustion,  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  he  was  ostracized  in  Paris,  when  everything  but  virtue 
was  tolerated,  and  fell  beneath  the  guillotine,  when  to  be  a  good 
man  was  the  only  capital  offence.  We  owe  the  theory  of  chem 
ical  atoms,  and  the  numerical  laws  of  combination,  which 
promise  chemistry  a  place  among  the  exact  sciences,  to  Dalton, 

—  a  simple-hearted,  lowly,  devout  member  of  the  Society  of 
Friends. 

Second  to  none  in  the  earliest  ranks  of  scientific  botany  was 
Ray  of  Oxford,  —  the  first  systematic  writer  on  natural  theology, 
whose  numerous  works  in  that  department,  full  of  profound 
learning,  and  redolent  throughout  with  the  breathings  of  an 
eminently  devout  spirit,  furnished  Paley  with  many  of  his  richest 
materials  and  choicest  illustrations.  Linnaeus  was  full  of  religious 
sentiment,  and  in  his  lectures  and  on  his  excursions  constantly 
expatiated  with  fervent  eloquence  on  the  divine  wisdom  and 
beneficence.  He  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  among  the 
trees  of  the  garden,  —  tracked  his  footprints  in  the  hoary  forests, 

—  plucked  with  devout  admiration  and  love  the  humblest  way 
side  flower.    In  harmony  with  his  blameless  and  beautiful  life, 
was  the  inscription  on  the  door  of  his  lecture  room,  "Innocui 
vivite;  numen  adest"   While  there  are  some  eminent  botanists, 
of  whose  religious  convictions  and  characters  I  can  trace  no 
record,  I  cannot  find  the  name  of  a  single  known  unbeliever,  who 


CONNECTION   BETWEEN   SCIENCE  AND   RELIGION    89 

has  left  a  distinct  mark  in  the  history  of  botany.  But,  in  my 
apprehension,  while  descriptive  and  analytical  botanists  have 
been  accumulating  materials  for  the  growth  of  their  science,  and 
while  rapid  progress  has  been  made  within  the  last  few  years  in 
vegetable  physiology  and  chemistry,  botany,  as  a  classificatory 
science,  has  received  few  permanent  laws,  —  has  been  enriched 
by  few  well-grounded  generalizations,  since  the  days  of  Linnaeus. 
Though  I  know  nothing  in  the  character  of  either  of  the  Jussieus, 
which  would  predispose  me,  for  the  sake  of  my  argument,  to 
undervalue  their  labors,  permit  me  to  say  (I  am  aware  that  the 
opinion  will  have  a  strangely  obsolete  sound  in  the  ears  of  pro 
fessed  botanists)  that  their  Natural  Orders  have  not  in  a  scien 
tific  aspect  superseded  the  Linnsean  system.  I  acknowledge  the 
superior  claims  of  the  Natural  Orders  in  a  practical  and  officinal 
point  of  view.  They  are  based  on  obvious  and  important  char 
acteristics.  They  group  together  plants  of  kindred  habits,  prop 
erties,  and  uses.  But  the  Linnsean  system,  founded  on  the  number 
and  position  of  the  vital  organs  of  the  plant,  keeps  continually 
before  the  mind  that  beautiful  network  of  correspondences  and 
equivalents,  —  those  filaments  of  a  uniform  plan  in  boundless 
diversity,  which  bring  the  summer  world  around  us  into  the 
closest  harmony  with  the  vast  whole  of  nature,  and  draw  the 
same  voices  of  praise  from  the  flowers  and  the  stars.  But  in 
science  I  am  of  the  unanointed  laity;  and  would  enter  my  dissent 
from  the  priesthood  with  unfeigned  diffidence. 

We  pass  now  to  animal  physiology.  Here  Galen  seems  first  to 
have  propounded  theories,  that  will  bear  the  light  of  modern 
times.  He  distinctly  maintained  the  doctrine  of  final  causes,  and 
professed  to  be  guided  by  it  in  his  researches.  His  discoveries 
seem,  from  his  own  showing,  to  have  resulted  from  his  antecedent 
faith  in  the  wisdom  and  benevolence  of  the  Creator,  —  a  faith, 
which  sustained  him  in  the  persevering  and  reiterated  effort  to 
arrive  at  uses  and  ends,  which  long  eluded  his  inquiry;  and  he 
speaks  with  indignation  of  those  (so  called)  philosophers,  who 
imagine  that  symmetry  fails  and  utility  ceases,  where  their  own 
powers  of  observation  are  at  fault.  He  pursued  all  his  investiga 
tions  in  the  spirit  of  reverence  and  worship,  and  styled  his  great 
work  "a  religious  hymn  in  honor  of  the  Creator."  The  position 
of  the  valves  in  the  veins  must  have  been  observed  many  cen- 


90  ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY 

turies  before  Harvey  inferred  from  it  the  circulation  of  the 
blood;  but  the  living  tide,  which  had  ebbed  and  flowed  in  millions 
of  hearts  for  nearly  six  thousand  years,  awaited  for  its  discovery 
the  clear  insight  of  a  devout  believer  in  the  kindly  use  and  ade 
quate  end  of  every  portion  of  the  animal  economy.  Cuvier  has 
performed  for  the  kingdoms  of  animated  nature  the  work  which 
Newton  wrought  for  the  mechanism  of  the  heavens.  His  general 
izations  now  seem  final  and  complete.  They  bind  together  all 
tribes  of  being  in  one  vast  and  beautiful  system,  pervaded  by 
analogies  and  equivalent  provisions;  and  reveal,  in  the  structure 
and  adaptations  of  the  animal  economy,  numberless  mysteries 
of  divine  wisdom,  which  had  been  hidden  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world.  He  reached  these  sublime  results,  because  his  reli 
gious  nature  prompted  him  to  look  for  unity  and  harmony  in  the 
works  of  God,  —  to  search  everywhere  for  traces  of  the  all-per 
vading  and  all-perfect  Mind,  —  to  seek  in  the  humblest  zoophyte 
the  expression  of  an  idea  of  God,  —  the  not  unworthy  type  of 
the  Infinite  Archetype.  He  wrought  in  glowing  faith.  He  served 
at  the  altar  of  science  as  a  priest  of  the  Most  High.  Infidelity 
went  from  his  presence  rebuked  and  humbled.  His  soul  was 
kindled,  his  lips  were  touched  ever  more  and  more  with  the  fire 
of  heaven,  as,  with  waning  strength  and  under  the  burden  of 
bereavement,  he  still  drew  bolder,  fuller  harmonies,  unheard 
before,  from  the  lyre  of  universal  nature.  Says  one  who  was 
present  at  the  lecture,  from  which  he  went  home  to  die,  "In  the 
whole  of  this  lecture  there  was  an  omnipresence  of  the  Omni 
potent  and  Supreme  Cause.  The  examination  of  the  visible 
world  seemed  to  touch  upon  the  invisible.  The  search  into  cre 
ation  invoked  the  presence  of  the  Creator.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
veil  were  to  be  torn  from  before  us,  and  science  was  about  to 
reveal  eternal  wisdom." 

My  limits  have  obliged  me  to  cite  but  few  of  the  great  men  of 
science.  I  might  add  many  more,  in  the  same  and  other  depart 
ments.  But  I  have  named  those,  who,  by  the  confession  of  all, 
hold  the  foremost  rank;  nor  do  I  fear  that  the  list  of  unbelieving 
philosophers  can  furnish  a  single  name  to  be  placed  by  the  side 
of  the  least  of  these. 

The  doctrine  of  my  discourse,  did  it  need  additional  proof, 
might  find  it  in  the  records  of  infidelity,  and  especially  in  that 


CONNECTION   BETWEEN   SCIENCE  AND   RELIGION    91 

carnival  season  of  unbelief,  —  the  age  of  the  French  Revolution. 
There  never  was  a  period  of  so  much  intellectual  brilliancy  as 
the  reign  of  terror  in  France.  The  kingdom,  the  metropolis, 
swarmed  with  men  of  the  highest  and  most  varied  culture. 
Voltaire,  who  had  run  the  entire  circle  of  all  things  that  could  be 
known,  had  indeed  passed  off  the  stage;  but  his  versatile  genius, 
his  amazing  industry,  his  defiant  skepticism,  gave  tone  to  the 
age,  of  which,  in  default  of  all  but  demon- worship,  he  was  the 
patron  saint.  I  once  saw  a  large  collection  of  autograph  man 
dates  for  the  guillotine.  Among  the  signatures,  I  recognized,  as 
arch-murderers,  many  of  the  most  accomplished  men  and  writers 
of  that  or  any  age,  chemists,  mathematicians,  philosophers,  men 
who  looked  down  upon  the  great  of  other  times,  as  we  look  up  to 
them.  Half  a  century  has  elapsed,  and  their  lights  have  almost 
all  gone  out.  Here  and  there  one  flickers,  and  is  suffered  to  burn 
to  its  last  drop  of  oil  by  that  Christian  forbearance  which 
quenches  not  the  smoking  flax.  There  is  no  strongly  marked 
epoch  in  the  world's  history  which,  as  to  intellectual  influence, 
is  now  so  little  felt  as  this.  There  remains  not  one  of  the  un 
believing  generation  who  is  owned  as  a  leading  and  controlling 
mind.  On  the  grave  of  their  idolized  Voltaire  it  is  hardly  in  good 
taste  to  cast  another  stone;  for  the  arch-scorner  (though  pos 
sessed  of  brilliant  and  fascinating  powers,  which  will  preserve 
his  lighter  and  less  faulty  works  from  speedy  oblivion) ,  as  regards 
all  recognized  authority  and  influence,  now  lies  too  low  for  scorn. 
Where  confidence  is  demanded,  none  believe  or  trust  him.  His 
most  voluminous  works,  and  those  by  which  he  hoped  to  over 
throw  the  faith  and  revolutionize  the  opinions  of  Christendom, 
are  mouldering,  unhonored,  and  unread.  The  very  nation  that 
worshipped  him  now  regard  him  as  a  mere  word-juggler,  made  up 
of  falsities  and  fallacies.  And  the  only  epitaph  that  posterity 
will  inscribe  on  the  sepulchres  of  the  great  men  of  his  school,  is 
that  mystic  word,  traced  by  the  unseen  hand  on  Belshazzar's 
wall,  "  TEKEL  :  —  thou  art  weighed  in  the  balance  and  found 
wanting."  But  what  lacked  they?  They  had  all  that  a  merely 
material  culture  could  give  them.  But  they  lacked  that  expan 
sion  of  intellect,  that  breadth  of  vision,  which  faith  in  God  and 
heaven  alone  can  give. 

I  have  in  this  discourse  omitted  all  reference  to  mental  phi- 


92  ANDREW  PRESTON  PEABODY 

losophy,  not  because  I  doubt  that  it  depends  for  its  successful 
cultivation  on  right  and  adequate  religious  ideas,  but  because  its 
whole  field  is  still  sub  lite,  and  I  cannot  therefore  cite  any  great 
fundamental  principles  as  resting  on  the  same  basis  of  established 
certainty  with  the  law  of  gravitation,  or  the  doctrine  of  final 
causes  in  physiology. 

The  case  however  is  different  with  the  moral  sciences,  and 
under  this  name  I  include  all  those  which  relate  to  the  laws  of 
individual  and  social  duty  and  well-being.  In  these  sciences, 
there  have  been  established  many  principles,  from  which  the 
world  will  not  recede;  and  they  have  been  established  through 
the  agency  of  religion.  In  this  class  of  results,  not  only  the  great 
truths  of  natural  religion,  but  also  the  leading  principles  of 
Christian  ethics  have  borne  an  essential  part.  There  is  not  an 
admitted  point  in  moral  science,  not  an  undisputed  maxim  in 
political  economy,  which  rests  not  on  those  spiritual  laws  first 
revealed  in  the  New  Testament,  though  coeval  with  the  human 
race.  Thus  the  old  doctrine  concerning  "the  balance  of  trade," 
with  the  numerous  selfish  arrangements  of  international  policy 
based  upon  it,  has  been  eradicated  by  the  recognition  of  that  law 
of  universal  brotherhood,  which,  whether  among  individuals  or 
nations,  makes  the  good  of  one  the  good  of  all.  The  vast  system 
of  insurance,  a  science  of  itself,  resting  as  it  does  in  all  its  details 
on  wide  and  bold  generalizations,  could  have  grown  into  being 
only  under  Christian  culture.  The  idea  of  thus  disarming  the 
shafts  of  deadly  calamity,  as  the  electric  conductor  draws  the 
thunderbolt  harmless  to  the  ground,  could  have  originated  only 
under  the  auspices  of  a  religion,  which  bade  men  bear  one 
another's  burdens;  and  the  whole  system  embodies  in  its  general 
features,  and  is  fast  approaching  in  its  modes  of  organization, 
the  New  Testament  maxims  of  reciprocal  helpfulness  and  charity. 
The  modern  doctrines  concerning  crime  and  punishment,  and 
the  more  humane  ideas  of  criminal  jurisprudence,  which  are  now 
in  the  course  of  successful  demonstration,  owe  their  origin  and 
development  solely  to  religious,  Christian  ideas  of  the  nature, 
dignity,  sacredness,  and  infinite  worth  of  every  human  being, 
considered  as  an  undying  child  of  God,  as  in  his  wanderings  and 
his  sins  the  subject  of  the  love  of  heaven,  as  never,  while  life 
lasts,  beyond  the  power  of  divine  truth  or  the  pale  of  divine 


CONNECTION   BETWEEN  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION    93 

forgiveness.  The  extension  of  kindred  ideas  to  the  true  dignity 
and  glory  of  nations  is  now  leading  great  minds  throughout 
Christendom  to  question  the  lawfulness  and  necessity  of  war, 
with  its  wasteful  apparatus;  nor  will  another  generation  have 
passed  away,  before  the  maxims,  "Love  your  enemies,"  "Avenge 
not,"  "Overcome  evil  with  good,"  will  be  deemed  as  essential 
laws  of  national  policy,  as  they  are  now  of  individual  Christian 
duty. 

But  it  was  not  my  intention  to  enter  upon  the  discussion  of 
this  class  of  topics,  which  would  demand  a  separate  discourse, 
and  to  which  I  could  not  now  do  the  least  justice  without  atro 
cious  injustice  to  an  already  long-suffering  audience. 

I  have  attempted  to  illustrate  the  connection  of  religion  and 
science.  The  connection  is  not  incidental  or  arbitrary,  but  inher 
ent  and  essential.  The  materials  of  both  are  the  same,  —  the 
thoughts  of  God.  Religion  reads  them  in  their  source;  science 
in  their  developments.  Brethren,  scholars,  men  of  science,  yours 
is  a  priestly  calling.  You  pursue  it  within  temple  gates  and  on 
holy  ground.  See  that  it  be  with  pure  and  reverent  spirits.  Thus 
may  you  be  leaders  in  the  ever-onward  movement  of  humanity 
towards  the  clear  vision  of  truth  in  nature,  and  the  sincere 
worship  of  Him,  of  whose  ideas  the  universe  is  the  transcript,  its 
history  the  utterance. 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 

BY   GEORGE   WILLIAM   CURTIS 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Massachusetts,  at  Harvard  University,  July  17, 
1862,  and  repeated  forty  times  during  the  ensuing  year  in  New  England,  New 
York,  and  Pennsylvania.  From  Orations  and  Addresses  of  George  William  Cur 
tis.  Copyright,  1893,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 

'WHILE  the  horizon  mutters,  and  our  hearts  and  ears  are 
'strained  and  listening  —  while  brave  men  fight  and  fall,  and  the 
streets  are  sad  with  maimed  and  wasted  soldiers  —  while  every 
home  sits  waiting  for  its  victim,  we  will  not  try  to  avoid  the  im 
perial  interest  of  the  hour.  What  are  they  fighting  for?  What 
are  they  falling  for?  Why  is  the  grief  that  bends  over  the  young 
dead  returning,  so  lofty  and  resigned?  Ask  them  as  they  lie  there. 
Could  they  speak,  they  would  answer:  "Not  in  vain  we  fell. 
t  j  Life  was  well  lost  for  our  country." 

'  ?\  But  what  is  the  cause  of  the  country?  We  are  fighting  for  the 
I  j*  ^Constitution,  for  the  Union  and  the  Government.  But  what  is 
^  ^the  great  purpose  behind  these,  to  secure  which  they  were  es 
tablished,  and  which  consecrates  and  irradiates  them  to  every 
true  American?  The  answerjs  familiar.  That  purpose  is  the 
security  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  The  principle  of  our  na 
tional  existence  is  liberty  secured  by  law.  And  by  liberty  we 
a  freedom  more  comprehensive  than  any  other  people, 
living  or  dead,  has  contemplated.  The  achievement  of  all  other 
nations  should  be  only  wings  to  American  feet  that  they  may 
hasten  to  heights  that  Greek  and  Roman,  that  Englishman  and 
Frenchman  and  German,  never  trod.  Were  they  wise?  Let  us 
be  wiser.  Were  they  noble?  Let  us  b$  nobler.  Were  they  just? 
Let  us  be  juster.  Were  they  free?  Let  our  very  air  be  freedom. 
Seated  in  the  temperate  latitudes  of  a  new  continent,  with  free 
hands,  free  hearts,  free  brains,  and  free  tongues,  we  are  called 
to  a  destiny  as  manifest  as  the  great  heroism  and  the  lofty  prin 
ciple  that  made  us  a  nation.  That  destiny  is  the  utmost  develop 
ment  of  liberty.  Let  those  who  will,  cower  before  the  chances 
that  attend  all  development.  Let  those  who  will,  despond  and 


, 


i 


M 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY          95 

despair  of  that  perfect  liberty  with  which  God  has  made  us  all 
free.  But  let  us  now,  here,  hi  the  solemn  moments  which  are 
deciding  if  there  is  to  be  a  distinctive  America,  resolve  that  even  ^  \ 
were  the  American  system  to  fade  from  history,  the  American 
principle  shoidd  survive  immortal  in  our  hearts.  Let  us,  then7 
contemplate  fte*  American  doctrine  ofjiberty  -/jio^jn  any 
Lsingle  direction, political,  social,  or  moral;  not  in  sany  necessary 
but  temporary  limitation  or  detail;  but  in  all  the  ample  and  jubi 
lant  splendor  of  its^pirit  and  promise,  lifting  our  eyes  to  see 
how  beautiful  upon  tre  mountains  are  the  feet  of  its  approach, 
mountains  that  we  are  iftwly  climbing  still,  and  are  yet  to  climb, 
but  the  heavenly  glory  at  whosn  summits  is  the  harbinger  of  day. 
It  Is  especially  important  thav  we  should  all  understand  what 
the  scope  of  that  doctrine  is,  becdise  of  the  incessant,  unscrupu 
lous,  and  s^ecious-effortrwhicfals  made  to  Belie,  limit,  and  deride 
it.  Our  history  for  many  years~is  tie  story  of  a  systematic  en 
deavor  to  debauch  the  national  conscience  and  destroy  the 
American  idea.  By  the  falsification  d  history;  by  the  basest 
appeal  to  prejudices  of  race_andjiQlor;  bj  the  solemn  sophistry 
of  theologians  whtf  adduce  the  divine  tolerance  of  wrong-doing 
as  a^Jjyine  sanction  of  wrong;  by  the  cold  ant  creakirfg  effort  of 
orators  wlio,  losing  the  sacred  inspiration  which  iTtne  Very  bur 
den  and  glory  of  our  history,  virtually  excuse  this  vanton  war 
of  some  citizens  upon  the  government,  the  nation,  ,n(l  human 
liberty,  because  others  have  constantly  professed  theirf aith  in  the 
fundamental  principle  of  the  government;  by  the  n^st  shame 
less  falsehood  and  reckless  pandering  to  selfishness  a^d  passion 
— Jhejattempt  is  persistently  making  to  destrov^tibe  very  root! 
Jof_the  American  doctrine  of  liberty  ,~wTnchls  the 
man  rights  based  upon  our  common  humanity. 

~i  tnat  doctrine  is  the  absolute  personal  and  Political  free- 


dom  of  every  man;  the  right,  that  is  to  say,  of  evt^jy  man  to 
think  and  speak  and  act,  subject  to  the  equal  righ^  of  other 
men,  protected  in  their  exercise  by  common  consent,  ^r  law.  It 
declares  that  men  are  to  be  deprived  of  personal  liberty  ••  only  for 
crime,  and  that  political  liberty  is  the  only  sure  guarantee  of 
personal  freedom.  These  are  the  postulates  of  our  civilization. 
Consequently  our  normal  social  condition  is  a  constant  enlarg 
ing  of  liberty;  and  any  connivance  at  the  permanent  restraint  of 


,  u 
J 


96  GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS 

personal,  political,  or  moral  freedom,  except  from  essential  in- 
competency,  as  of  youth  or  insanity,  is  a  disturbance  of  the 
divine  order  in  human  development. 

The  common  humanity  which  is  the  source  of  aty  equality  of 
right  is  attested  by  the  universality  of  language  aad  of  religion 
in  every  race  —  word  answering  to  word,  sacred  tradition  linked 
with  tradition;  but  its  loveliest  witness  is  the  universal  sympathy 
of  man  with  man\  The  heart  that  leags  to-day  #ith  the  resound- 
:ng  line  of  Homeric  story;  that  finds  in  the  Egyptian  tombs  of 
i  Hassan  the  faint  foreshadowing  of  'reek  temples,  and  in 
mute  magnificence  of  the  statue?  oi  Aboo  Simbel  a  silence 
which  it  understands ;_^^ear^jthat  Jbleeds  with  the  wronged 
Indians  of  Hispaniola,  and  sing,  with  the  African  mother  bring 
ing  milk  to  the  poor  white  mm  Mungo  Part;  that  blesses  the 
American  Nathan  Hale  grieving  that  he  had  but  one  life  to  lose 
for  his  country,  and  the  Alican  Toussaint  1'Ouverture  dying  a 


I  17 


<L  *-  thousand  deaths  for  his  nee  among  the  Jura  mountains  —  this 
J  i  »  <\  is  the  unerring  heart  of  nan  attesting  his  equal  humanity  J  This 

V>     is  the  eternal  witness  fiat,  of  every  variety  of  race,  complexion,  — -J 
\  capacity,  intelligent,  and  civilization,  it  is  the  samp  human 

family  that  streans  across  the  ages,\its  progressjike  the  flucr_*^w 
tuating  iSftss  c'an  advancing  army,  with  its  daring  outposts  an< 
-picfoefs,  its  steady  centre,  its  remote  wings,  its  dim  and  back 
ward  resenes»  stretching  many  a  mile  from  front  to  rear,  over 
hills  and  valleys,  over  plains  and  rivers;  here  bivouacking  in 
pastoral  rej*ose»  there  tossed  upon  the  agonized  verge  of  battle; ' 
but  one  gieat  army  still,  with  one  heart  beating  along  the  end 
less  line,  ^ith  one  celestial  captain,  one  inspiring,  consecrated 
hope. 

But  the  common  humanity  of  men  and  the  consequent  equal- 
y  of  huma11  rights,  although  obvious  enough,  have  been  but 
vaguely  an  d  sentimentally  acknowledged,  even  in  the  freest  and 
airest  ep->cns-    Pericles  in  the  funeral  oration  recounts  the 
splendor,  the  strength,  the  tolerance  of  Athens.  How  lovely  the 
picture  ^till!  In  that  soft  air,  on  that  bright  plain,  life  for  a  few 
^as  all  /a  festival.   But  in  the  golden  noon  of  Athenian  liberty 
there  •tfrere  five  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  in  Attica,  and 
morp  Ahan  four  hundred  thousand  of  them  had  no  .acknowl 
edged  rights  whatever.  When  we  speak  of  Athenian  liberty  we 


TME  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY          97 


mean  only  the  privilege  of  a  few  fortunate  men.  So,  too,  Ro 
was  but  a  few  families.   The  Roman  republic  was  a  patrician 
class,  that  slew  Tiberius  Gracchus,  the  republican.    The  lan 
guage  has  no  terms  for  human  rights.  The  Roman  mind  could 
conceive  "an  empire,  but  not  a  man.   Rome  could  conquer  the 
world,  but  humanity  defied  her.    Spartacus  was  a  barbarian, 
a  pagan,  and  a  slave.  Escaping,  he  summoned  other  men  wh 
liberty  was  denied.  His  call  rang  through  Italy  like  an  autu 
storm  through  the  forest,  and  men  answered  him  like^clustering 
leaves.  He  dashed  them  against  the  ot1  ,  thieves  of  their 

liberty,  and  three  times  he  overwhelmed  them.  Flushed  with  vic 
tory  and  rage  he  turned  his  conquering  sword  at  the  very  heart 
of  Rome,  and  the  terrified  despot  of  the  world  at  last  crushed 
him  with  the  energy  of  despair.  He  was  not  a  man  in  Roman  / 
eyes,  but  Rome  tottered  before  him,  and  fell  before  his  descend 
ants.  He  had  no  rights  that  Romans  were  bound  to  respect,  but 
he  wrote  out  hi  blood  upon  the  plains  of  Lombardy  his  equal  » 
humanity  with  Catoj  and  Csesar.  The  tale  is  terrible.  History 
shudders  with  it  still'  But  you  and  I,  Plato  and  Shakespeare,  the 
mightiest  and  the  meanest  men/  were  honored  in  Spartacus,  for 
his  wild  revenge  sho\  ed  the  brave  scorn  of  oppression  that  beats 
immortal  in  the  proud  hea/t  of  man.  . 

In  all  nj}£if)£s,  indeed,  there  hav^  been  ^ryirig  ^gnrn"n  +* 
liberty.  In  Athens,  where  both  personal  and  political  freedom 
were  totally  juiknown  to  the  great  bulk  of  the  peoplf\  t-hftrft 


1  dmiKJTftss  prvpjlnjj^  liberty  nf  t^r^ght  and  speech  among^the 
' 


happvAthenianJew.  On  the_other_hand,  in  "Puritan 
land,  wnT^j^inost-fivery  man  was.a  vo+Ar,  ^Higiomjiberty  was^  . 
annihilate^.  Yet  neither  in  pagan  Greece  nor  in  Christian  New  \s  * 
England  was  the  true  ground  of  liberty  either  seen  or  confessed. 
No,  nor  yet  in  old  England  to-day,  upon  whose  shore  we  may 
set  foot  and  hear  the  air  ringing  with  the  famous  burst  of  Curran, 
that  whoever  touches  that  soil  "stands  redeemed,  regenerated, 
and  disenthralled  by  the  irresistible  genius  of  universal  emanci 
pation.  "  The  fiery  rhetoric  cannot  make  us  forget  what  the  in 
telligent  English  radical  told  Mr.  Olmsted,  that  the  farm  laborers 
in  certain  districts  of  England  —  whom  Mr.  Olmsted  himself 
describes  as  more  like  animals  than  any  negro  or  Indian  or 
Chinese  or  Malay  he  ever  saw  —  although  forming  the  most 


GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS 

numerous  single  class  in  the  country,  are  not  thought  of  in  form 
ing  an  estimate  of  national  character.  That  rhetoric  cannot  pre 
vent  our  wondering  if  a  social  system  is  yet  safely  adjusted,  in 
which  the\Marquis  of  Breadalbane  rides  upon  his  own  estate 
seventy  milelTfrom  sea  to  sea,  while  five  millions  of  factory  la 
borers  squeeze  through  life  upon  starvation  wages.  No  siren  elo 
quence  can  sing  away  the  perception  that  British  society  is  but 
a  modified  feudalism;  and  spite  of  the  Englishmen  whose  names 
are  hallowed,  of  the  good  and  noble  men  who  make  Shakespeare 
and  Milton  possible  Englishmen,  who  so  plainly  see  and  clearly 
say  the  truth  of  our  great  struggle  —  despite  these  men,  the 
instinctive  sympathy  of  England  with  the  Rebellion  rather  than 
with  the  government  is  not  commercial  only;  it  is  deeper  than 
that:  it  is  organic;  it  is  social  and  political.  £The  comely  feudalism 
of  England  —  a  system  of  class  privilege,  not  of  human  right  — 
stretches  out  its  hand,  muffled  in  cotton,  to  the  hideous  hag  of 
/x""^rhuman  slavery  over  the  sea,  in  whom  it  owns  a  ghastly  kindred 
f7  with  itself.  I 

But  the  habit  of  domestic  political  freedom  in  the  American, 
colonies,  which  was  almost  universal,  combined  with  the  gener^ 
education  which  such  freedom  secures,  and  which  their  circum 
stances  favored,  forced  the   thinking  men  in  the  colonies  to 
understand  the  grounds  of  the  liberty  wiiich  they  instinctively 
demanded.  In  grejitemergencies  men  always  rise  tojcar_dina] 
^y  principles,  as^jn^ajjing  out  of  sight  of  land^  the mariner  look&»  yr 
/^Nup  and  steers  by  the  sun  and  stars.    In  their  golden  maturity  of  j 
•    wisdom  and  strength,  with  a  profound  faith  in  principle  which  no 
other  body  of  men  have  rivalled,  and  which  their  own  sons  have 
not  even  comprehended,  our  fathers  began  with  God  and  human 
nature,  founding  their  government  upon  truths  which  they  dis- 
,          dained  to  argue,  declaring  them  to  be  self-evident.    The  wise 
\         West  Indian  boy,  Alexander  Hamilton,  cried  with  the  bright 
,  V  f    ardor  of  conviction:  "The  sacred  rights  of  mankind  are  not  to  be 
^  ^^  rummaged  for  among  oM^parchments  or  musty  records.   They 
are  written  as  with  a^sunbeajri.  in  the  whole  volume  of  human 
nature,  and  can  never  Be  erased  or  obscured  by  mortal  power." 
James  Otis,  the  fiery  tongue  of  the  early  Revolution,  declared 
that  "the  Colonists  are  men,  the  Qolonists  are  therefore  free- 
born,  for  by  the  law  of  nature  all  men  are  free-born,  black  or 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 

"Amen,"  said  the  gallant  Richard  Henry  Lee,  a  Vir 
ginian  when  Virginian  was  a  name  of  honor,  "the  right  to  life 
and  the  right  to  liberty  are  inalienable."  John  Adams  responded, 
"  My  friends,  human  nature  itself  is  evermore  an  advocate  for 
liberty."  The  town  of  Providence,  in  voting  for  a  Continental 
Congress,  declared  "personal  liberty  an  essential  part  of  the 
Natural  rights  of  mankind."  "Freedom,"  said  the  Virginian 
Gazette,  "is  the  birthright  of  all  mankind,  Africans  as  well  as 
Europeans."  Then  came  the  great  Virginians,  Madison,  Mason, 
Patrick  Henry,  Edmund  Randolph,  and  their  peers,  with  their 
Declaration  of  Rights,  "All  men  are  by  nature  equally  free  and 
have  inherent  rights,  namely,  the  enjoyment  of  life  and  liberty, 
with  the  means  of  acquiring  and  possessing  property,  and  pursu 
ing  and  obtaining  happiness  and  safety."  And  at  last  Thomas 
Jefferson,  happy  among  men  that  his  hand  was  chosen,  gathered 
in  one  glowing  psean  the  inspiration  of  the  time,  declaring  the 
truth  to  be  self-evident  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  The 
fathers  said  what  they  meant  and  meant  what  they  said.  They  / 
meant  all  men,  not  some  men,  and,  calling  God  and  the  world 
to  witness,  they  said  all  men.  The  Sons  of  the  Morning  sang  to-{ 
gether,  and  the  clear  chorus  rang  through  the  world.  And  while 
one  burning  phrase,  "Give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death,"  keeps 
our  greatest  orator's  name  fresh  in  our  hearts  forever,  where  is 
he  who  dares  to  call  that  principle  "a  glittering  generality" 
that  declaration  of  the  only  true  ground  of  national  honor  and 
national  pea*--e  the  "passionate  manifesto  of  a  revolutionary 
war"? 

"  Who  but  must  laugh  if  such  a  man  there  be? 
"  Who  would  not  weep  if  Atticus  were  he  ?  " 


•  .The  American  doctrine  founds  liberty  in  the  natural 
of  men.  The  conspiracy  against  liberty  plants  itself  here  and 
elsewhere  upon  a  denial  of  that  equality.  Politicians  whose 
hopes  rest  upon  the  popular  ignorance  and  prejudice,  and  not 
upon  the  popular  intelligence,  furiously  sneer  at  the  idea  of 
equality.  It  is  important,  therefore,  that  every  man  should  un- 
c'-erstand  what  human  equality  is.  It  is  an  elemental  lesson,  but 
the  attack  is  made  at  the  very  foundation  and  must  be  met  there. 
How  then  are  we  born  equal?  Clearly  we  are  not  all,  or  any 
.  of  us,  equal  in  capacity,  in  circumstance,  or  condition.  We  are 


100  GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS 

* 

not  equal  in  our  height  or  weight;  in  the  color  of  cur  hair  or  eyes 
Does  the  doctrine  imply  that  Benedict  Arnold  is  equal  in  honcT 
to  George  Washington?  That  Martin  Farquhar  Tupper  is  equ  *1 
in  genius  to  Shakespeare?  or  that  Robert  Toombs  is  equal  In 
honor  and  heroic  patriotism  to  Robert  Smalls?  No  —  any  mo^e 
^ithan  it  declares  General  Tom  Thumb  to  be  the  equal  in  statur  e 
of  the  Belgian  Giant,  or  Lucrezia  Borgia  of  equal  humanity  wit}1  > 
^Florence  Nightingale.  ^jgM^Hinllfrg  ^ichomde^lies  our  doctrine 

of  liberty  -T^rajT"e^R^        ^ 

?  And  there  is  no  limitation  to  this  right.  It  is  not  true  of  some 
^^  men  and  untrue  of  others.  If  any  man  has  it,  all  men  have  it. 
What  right  have  you  to  $>ur  life  and  liberty  that  I,  being  guilt 
less,  have  not  to  mine?  And  if  any  man  or  society  of  men  deny 
them  to  me  and  claim  to  take  them  away,  what  is  the  authority? 
*What  can  it  be  but  brute  force,  which  would  have  submitted 
Plato  to  any  Persian  bully,  and  jiid  submit  Christ  to  Herod.  I 
am  a  weaker  man  than  you  —  am  I  less  a  man?  If  you  steal  my 
life  or  liberty  for  that,  a  stronger  man  may  by  the  same  right 
steal'yoiirs.  I  am  a  duller  man  than  you  —  am  I  less  a  man?  If 
f  for  that  reason  you  defraud  me,  beware  of  wiser  men  than  your 
self.  I  am  a  darker  man  than  you  —  am  I  less  a  man?  If  for 
that  cause  you  enslave  me,  the  idiot  albinos  are  the  born  kings 
of  men. 

The  foundationjrf  jiberl^v;  in  natural  right  was  no  boast  of 
passionate  rhetoric  from  the  mouths  of  the  fathers.  They  were 
neither  dreamers  nor  visionaries,  and  they  were  much  too  earnest 
to  be  mere  rhetoricians.  Thus  they  were  not  hypocrites  in  the 
question  of  slavery.  Their  common  sense  is  the  most  contemp 
tuous  censure  of  our  modern  sophistry.  We  believe  in  the  rights 
of  man,  they  said,  and  of  course  slavery  is  wrong.  But  it  is  a 
question  of  fact  as  well  as  principle.  The  slaves  are  entitled  to 
their  personal  freedom  as  much  as  we;  now  how,  under  all  the 
circumstances,  shall  they  soonest  regain  it  wnth  the  least  loss  of 
every  kind  of  liberty  to  every  man  in  the  land?  We  no  more 
defend  slavery  because  we  hold  slaves,  than  when  we  are  ill  we 
defend  disease.  Every  man  ought  to  be  well,  but,  being  sick,  th  ^ 
question  is  how  most  safely  and  soonest  to  be  cured.  Therefoi  e 
when  they  established  the  government  they  made  a  fundamental 
law  so  peacefully  expansive  that  it  should  gladly  allow  the  dis- 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY        101 

appeal  ance  of  slavery  which  they  contemplated  and  the  utmost 
development  of  the  freedom  wLich  they  desigtttit};  •Mi&dfuL'df 
the  rights  of  the  political  comm'mitiee  of  which  they 'were  all 
members,  they  did  not  forget  th<  rights  o^  mp»  whicifc  pojitifcal. 
communities  existed  to  protect. 

<;  The  last  words  of  the  Continental  Congress,  retiring  before 
the  new  government,  have  a  startling  and  tragical  significance 
as  we  hear  them  through  the  raging  tempest  of  this  civil  war 
l^ypEjre  forgotten  that  the  rights  for  wjiioh 


has  conleudfiiare  the  rights  of  human  nafureT^ithat  solemn 
hour  they  charged  us.  Their  lips,  glowing  with  the  words  of  a 
faith  that  shames  us,  calling  God  to  witness,  told  us  not  to  forget. 
We  have  forgotten  —  oh,  for  the  broken  hearts,  for  the  costly 
lives,  for  the  blood-red  land !  —  we  have  forgotten,  and  God  is 
entering  into  judgment. 

So  august  is  the  American  doctrine  of  liberty.    It  ought  not 
to  be  less,  for  this  only  is  absolutely  universal.  It  is  so  vast  that 
it  promises  endless  progress.    It  is  so  pure  that  it  requires  the 
sincerest  faith. 'Jit  is  so  true  that  virtue  alone  can  achieve  it.  Do 
we  believe  this  doctrine?    Do  we  believe  that  the  right  of  per 
sonal,  political,  and  moral  liberty  inheres  in  human  nature  and 
belongs  to  every  man?    I  do  not  ask  whether  we  think  every 
Malay  or  Patagonian  ought  to  vote,  or  whether  the  Grand 
Lama  oughl^to  turn  himself  into  a  Constitutional  President  of 
Thibet,  but  whether  we  agree  that  the  cardinal  principles  of 
progressive  civilization  are  the  clear  perception  that  every  man 
is  entitled  to  this  liberty,  and  that  our  duty  is  the  unwearied 
effort  wisely  to  secure  it  for  him.    That  in  this  country  we  owe 
a  double  allegiance,  that  we  are  citizens  of  a  State  and  also  of  a 
nation,  that  the  fundamental  law  leaves  to  the  States  in  time 
of  peace  the  absolute  regulation  of  their  domestic  affairs,  are 
truths  which  in  no  way  conflict  with  our  obligations  as  morally 
responsible  men  incessantly  to  wx>rk  for  the  enlightenment  and 
elevation  of  all  men.   Nor,  because  I  am  a  loyal  citizen  of  the\  . 
State  of  New  York  and  of  the  United  States,  and  honorably  \ 
bound  to  respect  the  right  of  every  State  to  care  for  itself,  am    1 
I  required  to  shut  my  eyes  or  hold  my  tongue  if  the  State  of  / 
California  shall  legalize  murder  or  theft,  or  the  State  of  Mas^/ 
sachusetts  shall  enact  that  all  citizens  who  are  more  than  sixty    ^ 


102  GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS 

years  old  shall  be  enslaved.  I  may  say  —  nay,  I  am  a  traitoi  t 
my  Stale,  to  my  country,  to  n  y  race,  and  to  my  Creator,  if   I 
do  not  say —  that,  such  laws    ire  most  dangerous  and  wicked: 

-  * 

anr  for  lh<  v^ry  simple  rea  on  that  whatever  strikes  at  the 
.  natural  rights  of  any  man  in  any  State  wounds  every  man  in  all 
the  States  and  pierces  the  heart  of. the  nation.  And  manifestly 
it  is  only  by  the  freest  possible  discussion  in  all  the  States  of 
every  question  which  affects/the  national  policy  that  that  policy 
>  can  be  wisely  determined.  j(Vhen,  therefore,  a  man  says  regret 
fully  that  if  the  discussion  of  human  rights  could  only  have  been 
suppressed  in  this  country  there  would  have  been  no  civil  war, 
he  says  merely  that  if  we  had  but  quietly  consented  to  renounce 
the  most  precious  of  our  Constitutional  rights,  we  should  have 
surrendered  all  the  rest  without  a  struggle.  And  he  speaks  truly. 
For  if,  by  common  consent  and  a  deplorably  false  conception 
of  State  rights,  the  citizens  of  this  country  had  allowed  their 
tongues  to  be  tied,  had  suffered  the  Constitution  to  be  nullified, 
as  it  was  in  half  the  country,  and  no  voice  had  protested  and 
warned  us  of  the  sure  and  stealthy  destruction  of  the  principle 
of  liberty  in  our  national  government  by  that  of  despotism, 
then  when  a  little  while  had  revealed  the  ghastly  spectacle  of 
that  despotism  crowning  itself  with  the  iron  band  of  absolute 
power,  it  might  well  have  been  too  late  to  recover  the  liberty 
at  whose  loss  we  had  connived.  O  friends!  we  may  pardon  that 
voice,  may  we  not,  if  it  were  acrimonious,  .  Jgggfflfinftte,  vitupera 
tive,  fierce,?  Yes;  but  s^^JKithlaigry,  jagge<J  dart  the  TigElning 
stabs  the  stagnant  body  of  the  summer  air  —  a  blinding  glare, 
an  aVful  crash . —  but  lo !  the  soft  splendors  of  the  sunset  follow, 
then  shine  the  stars,  and  at  last  the  ambrosial  air  of  morning 
breathes  coolness,  health,  and  peace  upon  a  world  renewed. 

Taught  by  terrible  experience,  therefore,  the  danger  of  f orget- 
ting  our  doctrine  of  liberty,  let  us  look  at  one  or  two  of  the  more 
specious  ways  in  which  it  is  practically  thwarted  or  denied;  let 
us  see  where  we  are  weak,  that  we  may  know  where  to  strengthen 
ourselves. 

And,  first,  of  liberty  of  thought  and  speech.  These  are  indeed 
expressly^ affirmed  in  our  fundamental  laws;  but  you  remember 
the  startlingly  direct  remark  of  De  Tocqueville,  "I  know  no 
country  in  which  there  is  so  little  true  independence  of  mind  and 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY  (      103 

r^edom  of  discussion  as  in  America."  The  reason  is  obyious. 
Political  and  public  success  with  us  depend  upon  popular  favor 
*  and  party  votesjfcut,  as  the  great  mass  of  men  everywhere  are  I 
comparatively  iminstructed  and  prejudiced,  the  condition  of  their 
favor  is  rather  conformity  to  their  prejudices  than  appeal  to  their 
noblest  instincts/  Yet  the  power  of  .public  opinion  in  this  coun- 
try  and  the  danger  of  its  debasement  cannot  be  exaggerated, 
when  you  reflect  that  progress  is  truly  practicable  only  when  it  is 
the  result  of  the  popular  conviction.  UntiHhe  people  are  per 
suaded,  the  law  is  premature;  and  a  law  to  be  truly  respected 
must  represent  the  conviction  of  the  nation.  Therefore  jj 
patriot  in  this  country  is  he  who  sees  most  clearly  what  the  na- 
^  ho  does  what  he  can  by  plain  and  brave 


,.  ^ 


speech  to  influence  it  to  that  desire,  and  then  urges  and  sup 
ports  the  laws  which  express  it.  But  as  public  opinion  is  neces 
sarily  so  powerful  with  us,  we  fear  it  and  flatter  it,  and  so  pam 
per  it  into  a  tyrant.  How  the  country  Jteems^ with  conspicuous 
men,  scholars,  orators,  politicians,  divines,  advocates,  public 
teachers  all,  whose  speeches,  sermons,  letters,  votes,  actions,  are 
a  prolonged,  incessant  falsehood  and  sophism;  a  soft  and  shal 
low  wooing  of  the  Public  Alexander  and  the  Public  Cromwell, 
telling  him  that  he  has  no  crook  in  his  neck  and  no  wart  on  his 
nose.  How  many  of  our  public  men,  our  famous  orators,  have 
sharply  criticised  our  life  and  tendency?  How  many  have  said 
what  they  thought,  rather  than  what  they  supposed  we  wanted 
to  hear?  When  we  hear  them  or  read  them,  instead  of  breathing  . 
the  pure  mountain  air  of  insight  aqd  inspiration,  we  are  con-  "* 
scious  of  thejsweet  but, sickly  breath  of  marshes  and  stagnant 


private  slander,  and  public  indignation  have  been  the  thumb 
screws,  the  boots,  the  rack,  and  the  fagot  with  which  American 
puttie  opinion  has  punished  American  citizen^  who, .exercising 
only  their  constitutional  rights,  have  honestly  said  what  they 
honestly  thought. 

In  a  system  likejours,  where  almost  every  man  has  a  vote  and 
votesTas  1he~  i -nooses,  public  ppjnipn  is  really  the  government. 
Whoever  panders  to  it  is'training  a  tyrant  for  our  master.  Who- 


GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS 

ever~enlightens  it  lifts  people  towards  peace  and  prosperity. 
But  there  is  no  method  of  enlightening  it  but  the  freest  discus- 

I   sion.    Stop  the  mouth  and  you  .sfloy  r»ivjj||^finy.    Chain  down 
_every"huinan  right,  but  leave  it  the  right  of  speech  free,  and  it 
will  presently  unchain  all  the  rest. 

And  here  let  me  say  a  word  to  avoid  a  possible  misapprehen 
sion.  We  are  engaged  in  a  formidable  and  threatening  struggle 
for  the  defence  of  the  very  existence  of  civil  order,  without  which 
there  can  be  no  secure  enjoyment  of  any  right  whatever,  and 
for  the  maintenance  of  a  government  which  by  its  lawful  opera 
tion  secures  more  justice,  more  liberty,  more  prosperity,  and 
a  more  equal  chance  than  could  be  hoped  for  from  any  other 
conceivable  form.  For  the  rescue  and  preservation  of  that  gov- 
i  eminent  we  stand  in  arms.  And  when  \vc  a< ropted  war,  we 

^accepted  tin  conditions  of  war.  When  the  rebellion  announced 
itself  at  Sumter,  there  were  but  two  methods  open  to  us. 
One  was  to  yield  to  it  and  avoid  war  by  surrender  and  de 
struction  of  the  government;  the  other  was  to  take  up  arms. 
Instinctively,  the  nation  chose  war,  and  that  choice  was  the 
earnest  of  its  triumph/ But  war  "is  totally  inconsistent  with  the 
unrestricted  enjoyment  of  personal  and  political  rights.  How 
ever  consecrated,  however  inevitable,  war  secures  its  ends  by 
brute  force.  It  must  have  unity  of  sentiment  or,  that  being  im 
possible,  it  must  disembarrass  itself  of  criticism  which  would 
be  armed  opposition  if  it  dared.  WTien,  therefore,  battle,  begins, 

£  debate  ends,  because  then  words  are  things.  Whoever  helps  the 
enemy  by  his  tongue  or  his  hand  necessarily  does  it  at  his  peril. 
"Why,"  wrote  Washington  to  Governor  Trumbull  of  Connecti 
cut—  "why  should  persons  who  are  preying  upon  the  vitals 
of  their  country  be  suffered  to  stalk  at  large,  whilst  we  know  they 
will  do  us  every  mischief  in  their  power?"  Therefore  when  war 
is  unavoidable,  and  holy  as  ours  is,  we  must  embrace  it  wholly 
and  heartily  for  the  sake  of  peace.  You  cannot  carry  the  olive- 
branch  and  the  sword  together,  for  the  olive  will  hide  the  s^ord, 
or  the  sword  the  olive.  Whoever  takes  the  sword  in  one  hand  and 
the  olive-branch  in  the  other  is  half-hearted  as  he  is  half -armed, 
and  meets  halfway  the  shameful  defeat  which  his  craven  soul 
solicits.  Whoever  means  w,ar  —  and  no  one  else  has  a  right  to 
make  war  —  takes  the  sword  in  both  hands,  hews  his  way  to 


THE   AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY         105 

perfect  victory,  and  then  covers  himself  all  over  with  olive- 
branches.  War  willingly  accepted  is  the  willing  renunciation  of 
rights  for  a  certain  time  and  for  a  particular  purpose.  All  our 
rights  are  threatened  by  this  rebellion.^  And  it  is  to  save  the 

^fundamentaFguarantee  of  tfiemUT  tnat  some  are  temporarily 
suspended,  as  when  your  eyesight  is  threatened  you  assent  to 
temporary  darkness  in  order  to  escape  permanent  blindness. 

\  ' ;  Do  we  ask  what  is  our  security  against  the  absolute  destruc 
tion  of  those  rights  which  war  suspends?  Nothing  but  the  char 
acter  and  intelligence  of  the  people.  In  our  system  the  govern 
ment  and  the  army  are  only  the  people.  And  it  is  by  popular 
assent  alone  that  any  rights  are  suspended.  The  people  in  the  * 
Constitution  have  clothed  the  President  in  time  of  war  with  al 
most  absolute  power.  And  well  for  us  in  this  solemn  hour  that 
they  are  given  to  one  who  unites  Washington's  integrity  to 
the  democratic  faith  of  Jefferson;  whose  loyal  heart  beats  true 
to  the  heart  of  the  people;  who  knows  that  their  confidence  is  his 
only  strength,  and  that  the  faster  his  foot  and  tA  heavier  his 
hand,  the  quicker  and  surer  is  the  safety  of  all  the  liberties  of 
every  man  in  the  land. 

But,  again,  our  doctrine  of  liberty  founds  equal  political 
knowledge  upon  natural  human  equality,  and  utterly  repudiates 
arbitrary  exclusion. 

Yet,  not  to  insist  upon  the  exception  of  the  sexes,  which  you 
will  regard  as  visionary,  I  pass  to  another.  It  is  not  only  sex 
which  works  a  deprivation  of  acknowledged  right,  but  color  also. 
If  you  commit  a  crime,  you  properly  lose  your  political  princi 
ples.  But  if  you  are  born  of  the  wrong  color,  you  lose  them 
also,  or  you  enjoy  them  upon  the  most  stringent  conditions. 
There  is  a  criminal  complexion  in  America.  If  a  man  is  born  of 
any  decree,  of  Hnskii^.*^  the  American  assumption  is  that  he  is 
an  ignorant,  degraded,  idle,  knavish  rascal;  and  the  assumption 
is  founded  upon  the  fact  that  we  have  done  our  best  to  make 
him  so.  In  my  State  of  New  vork  the  most  industrious,  temper 
ate,  intelligent,  moral,  and  v*  "uable  citizen,  if  he  be  of  the  crim 
inal  complexion,  must  have  In  ed  three  times  as  long  in  the  State 
as  any  other  citizen,  and  must  have  paid  a  tax  that  no  other 
voter  pays,  Lefore  he  can  enjoy  the  right  of  voting.  It  is  the 
sheerest  nonsense  to  assume  that  such  a  man  is  a  bad  or  dan- 


106  GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS 

gerous  or  incompetent  citizen  because  he  is  not  a  white  man, 
precisely  as  it  would  be  to  suppose  that  an  idle,  worthless  vaga 
bond  is  a  safe  citizen  because  he  is  a  white  man.  It  is  conceivable 
that  free  society  should  disfranchise  the  common  drunkards, 
the  hopelessly  idle  and  ignorant  and  brutal,  as  well  as  those 
who  have  no  respect  for  the  rights  of  man,  of  whatever  race  or 
color  they  might  be;  but  to  proscribe  virtue,  intelligence,  and 
a  industry,  which  are  the  essential  guarantees  of  civilization,  be- 
f  cause  of  the  color  of  the  man,  is  as  reasonable  .as  to  deny  men 
the  rights  of  citizenship  because  they  have  red  hair  or  squint  or 
wear  square-toed  shoes.  Such  a  practice  founds  political  liberty 
upon  accident  or  incident,  which  have  no  moral  character  what 
ever,  instead  of  grounding  it  upon  natural  human  right.  But  we 
enjoy  all  our  natural  rights,  not  because  we  are  of  the  Sem 
itic  or  non-Semitic  families,  not  because  we  are  Caucasians  or 
Mongolians,  not  because  we  are  Saxons  or  Obits,  but^Jjficause 
we  are  inen^  /The  difference  of  race  has  no  more  to  do  with 
right  than  1»e  difference  of  height  or  strength.  The  moment 
we  begin  with  any  arbitrary  exclusion  we  are  drifting  straight 
into  despotism.  If  we  may  deny  a  man's  rights  because  he  is  of- 
a  certain  color,  we  may  equally  deny  them  because- he  is  of  a 
certain  race  or  country  or  religion  or  profession.  ~~^^ 

And  we  shall  do  so,  for  injustice  breeds  injustice.  fThe  habit 
ual  denial  of  personal  liberty  to  some  persons  of  a  certain  color  in 
this  country,  and  of  practical  political  liberty  to  the  rest  of  the 
has  naturally  smoothed  the  way  to  other  more  dangerous 
invasions  of  the  American  doctrineJ^A^few  years  ginrp  I  n^t  a 
in  .'  lie. oil  r*iu  Jjidjjiija,  who 'forcibly  expressed  bis  policy  by 


saying  that  he  wished  every  darned  negro  in  the  country  would 
kill  a  darned  Paddy  ?  and  then  "be  hung  for  it.A  We  laugh  at  the 
-•^felravagance  of  the  proposition,  but  we  have  recently  witnessed 
the  career  of  a  party  which  virtually  aimed  to  carry  out  this 
ludicrous  scheme;  not,  indeed,  by  hanging  but  by  disfranchise- 
ment.  Its  object  was  to  leave  those  who  were  already  deprived 
of  personal  liberty  to  their  fate,  and  to  restrict  political  liberty 
to  men  of  a  certain  color  who  were  born  in  the  country  and  were 

I  generally  of  one  religious  faith.   Our  doctrine  of  liberty  was 
already  denied  in  the  case  of  colored  men.   This  new  party 
!  proposed  to  add  to  that  denial  those  of  foreign  birth,  aiming  es- 


tuse  I 
T  —   \ 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY         107 

pecially  at  the  Irishmen,  who  were  the  chief  emigrants  from  for 
eign  lands,  and  who  were  mostly  of  one  church.  It  was  simply 
a  proposition  of  national  suicide,  for  it  sought  to  create  a  most 

y    ^dangerous,  because  an  immense,  disfranchised  body  of  citizens. 

7? — -With  ^imcon^ciQUS-iiuaaQr  it  adopted  the  dark-lantern  of  the 
midnight  thief  as  its  symbol.  With  an  infallible  and  unsus 
pected  satire,  the  popular  instinct  dubbed  it  Know-Nothing, 
while  this  most  peculiarly  un-American  of  our  political  parties 
completed  its  comedy  by  soberly  claiming  to  be  distinctively 
American.  But  it  is  a  happy  fact  for  any  man  who  believes  that 
political  liberty  is  based  upon  the  rights  of  all  men  and  not  upon 
the  whims  of  some,  that  its  career  was  the  shortest  of  any  party 
in  our  history. 

But  our  late  history  shows  us  a  far  more  dangerous,  because 
more  subtle  and  specious,  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  liberty 
denial  which  one  of  the  nimblest  and  most  adroit  of  our  modern 
politicians  thought  to  be  the  surest  trap  to  catch  the  Presidency. 
Mr.  Douglas,  who  had  a  frenzy  to  be  President,  who  had  watched 
very  closely  the  current  of  political  sentiment  in  the  country,  was 
persuaded  that  the  long  habit  of  indifference  to  human  rights  had 
deadened  the  sense  of  justice  in  the  national  mind.  He  was  not 
a  thoughtful  scholar,  and  therefore  did  not  know  from  the  ex 
perience  of  all  history  that  there  is  no  law  more  absolute  than  the 
eternal  restoration  of  the  moral  balance  of  the  world  by  the 
vindication  of  justice.  Nor  had  his  wide  and  familiar  intercourse 
with  the  most  demoralized  and  degraded  political  epoch  in  our 
history  supplied  that  necessary  knowledge.  He  was  the  repre 
sentative  politician  of  an  era  which  had  apparently  lost  all  faith 
in  ideas.  His  favorite  dogma  was  the  most  satirical  insult  to  the 
American~people,  for  it  implied  that  their  ignorant  enthusiasm 
would  honor  him  most  who  most  cunningly  denied  the  most 
cardinal  principle  of  their  national  life.  Apparently  his  dogma 
was  the  simple  assertion  of  the  right  of  the  majority  to  govern, 
and  nothing  could  be  fairer  than  that.  This  is  a  democratic 
country,  he  said;  the  majority  rules.  Unhappily  we  quarrel 
about  slavery  in  the  territories.  Very  well;  let  us  settle  the  ques 
tion  by  applying  the  fundamental  rule.  Let  the  majority  de 
cide.  Let  the  majority  of  people  in  the  territory  say  whether 
they  will  have  slaves.  What  can  be  fairer?  cried  Mr.  Douglas, 


108  GEORGE   WILLIAM   CURTIS 

leering  at  the  country.  What  can  be  fairer?  echoed  a  thousand 
{     ^caucuses.    The   manner  was  blandishing.    The  sophism  was 
a^^Tsparkling.   It  was  a  champagne  that  bubbled  and  whirled  in 


>  pbpular  brain,  until  many  a  wise  man  feared  that  the  conscience 
t 


dhgommon  sense  of  the  natjfm  w*™  wholly  rJriiggH,  Jj  was 
the  doctrine  of  the  sheerest  moral  indifference.  "Liberty,  hu 
man  rights,  they  are  only  Barnes,"  he  said,  and  with  a  frightful 
coinposure"aTi"d  litter  moral  confusion  he  added,  "I  take  the  part 
of  the  white  man  against  the  black,  and  of  the  black  man  against 
the  alligator."  I  am  neither  for  slavery  nor  liberty,  he  said.  I 
don't  care  which.  But  the  nation,  after  all,  was  not  drugged;  it 
did  care.  Its  interest,  if  not  its  conscience,  was  alarmed.  His 
jovial  reference  of  the  rights  of  human  nature  to  the  whim  or 
hatred  or  supposed  interest  of  a  majority  was  overborne  by  the 
refusal  to  leave  them  even  to  a  majority.  The  two  great  parties 
of  the  country  rallied  around  the  essential  principle  involved. 
It  was  at  once  a  question  of  liberty  and  of  despotism.  The  par 
ties  were  in  earnest.  Yet  he  could  not  be  in  earnest,  for  he  was 
only  playing  for  the  Presidency.  '  '  *  The  mills  of  God  '  !  —  there 
are  no  mills  of  God,"  he  smiled  and  said;  and  instantly  he 
was  caught  up  and  politically  ground  to  powder  between  the 
whirring  millstones  of  liberty  and  slavery.  j^t^T^ 

I  have  called  the  principle  dangerous.  But  we  calinot  exag- 
gerate  its  danger,  fit  is  a  poison  which  works  still  in  our  political* 
system,  and  it  is  as  fatal  to  human  liberty  as  it  is  repugnant  to 
the  spirit  of  our  government  and  to  the  generous  instincts  of 
enlightened  men,  for  it  is  the  absolute  denial  of  the  American 
postulate  of  the  equal  and  inherent  rights  of  man  and  that  goy- 
ernments  exist  to  secure  these  rights^  Itjpjaces^the  life,  liberty, 
property,  and  welfare  of  every  citizen,  whatever  his  complexion 
or  race  or  nationality,  at  t]^  mercy  of  ^majority.  It  was  as 
serted,  indeed,  of  a  Territory;  but  if  it  be  tolerable  doctrine  any 
where  in  the  land  that  the  majority  can  rightfully  dispose  of  the 
liberty  and  other  rights  of  a  minority  or  of  a  single  innocent 
man,  then  it  is  tolerable  anywhere;  in  this  State,  for  instance. 
And  if,  acting  in  due  legal  form,  a  majority  should  decide  that 
the  blind  men  should  be  hung,  the  crime  would  be  strictly  justi 
fied  by  this  principle.  "Oh,  no,"  you  say;  "the  State  Constitu 
tion  secures  life  and  liberty  except  for  crime."  Yes,  but  why 


THE  AMERICAN   DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY         109 

does  it  secure  them?  Simply  because  you  have  a  right  to  your 
life  and  your  liberty,  which  God,  not  the  Constitution,  gave  you. 
The  majority  may  refuse  to  allow  you  the  exercise  of  that  right, 
for  a  thousand  Neros  are  more  powerful  than  one  Nero.  They 
may  express  their  refusal  as  law,  and  enforce  it  by  the  bayonet; 
as,  a  hundred  years  a^,  it  was  the  Engb'sh  law  in  Ireland  that  if 
a  son  informed  against  his  father  as  a  Papist,  the  father's  prop 
erty  should  be  given  to  the  son;  and  as,  eighteen  hundred  years 
ago  in  Judea,  it  was  the  law  of  Herod  that  all  children  under  two 
years  of  age  should  be  murdered.  What  then?  Would  it  be 
right,  justifiable,  humane?  Would  any  heart  that  was  not  black 
wj|ji  passion,  or  min^J]iatw^sj[iot  utterly  spared  with  nophintTV. 
excuse  it  for  a  moment?  No;  the  human  instinct  repels  and  scorns 
the  plea.  It  is  the  rule  of  the  King  of  Dahomey,  of  the  pirate- 
ship,  of  the  slava-market.  Against  the  American  doctrine  of 
liberty  it  is  the  very  unpardonable  sin;  and  it  is  a  happy  au 
gury  that  the  effort  to  make  it  the  creed  of  what  was  called 
the  Democratic  party  in  this  country  shivered  and  annihilated 
that  party  by  driving  from  it  all  the  adherents  of  the  great, 
true,  universal  democratic  party  of  all  times  and  of  all  coun 
tries,  which  eternally  maintains  that  men  as  well  as  majorities 
have 


The  tendency  of  all  men  and  societies  is  to  disregard  moral 
principles  as  something  too  visionary,  too  abstract  and  im-  ' 
practicable,  for  working-men  and  actual  life.  But  it  is  as  sure  as 
sunrisejhat  men  and  nations,  either  in  their  own  lives  and  char 
acters  or  in  those  of  their  descendants,  will  pay  the  penalty  of 
injustice  aff3  'immorality.  For  injustice  breeds  Ignorance,  super 
stition,  bestia!ity7"Barbarism,  and  the  conflict  of  passions;  while 
justice  fosters  intelligence,  industry,  mutual  respect,  peace,  and 
good- will.  We  have  not  believed  it,  but  the  loss  of  our  nationality 
will  be  the  cost  of  our  further  disbelief.  In  all  the  history  of 
civilization  there  is  no  spectacle  so  humiliating  as  the  conduct  of 
this  nation  towards  one  unhappy  race.  Their  only  offence  is  that 
we  have  injured  them.  The  only  excuse  that  we  urge  is  that  they 
submit.  At  the  South  a  servile  people,  often  degraded  almost 
out  of  humanity,  they  are  treated  with  the  same  familiarity  as  - 
the  Arab  treats  his  horse,  but  with  more  contempt.  At  the 
North,  of  insignificant  numbers,  they  are  held  in  the  pitiful 


110  GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS 

scorn  that  paralyzes  energy  and  hope.  Well,  they  did  not  wish 
to  be  here.  They  are  not  a  nomadic  race;  they  would  never  have 
come  if  they  had  not  been  stolen  for  otir  profit.  Do  we  say  that 
they  show  no  desire  of  liberty,  that  we  could  respect  their  man 
hood  if  they  would  only  rise  and  cut  their  masters'  throats,  but 
that  their  tame  subordination  to  slaver^proves  them  fit  only 
to  be  slaves?  True,  if  these  four  millions  were  of  a  less  mild  and 
flexible  race,  then,  as  the  Syrian  slaves  of  Rome  closed  in  a 
death-grapple  with  the  empire,  nor  relaxed  their  hold  until  a 
million  lives  were  lost,  so  these  slaves  would  long  ago  have  hewn 
their  way  to  freedom,  or  in  blind  despair  the  tortured  Samson 
would  have  grasped  the  columns  of  the  social  temple  and  have 
dragged  it  down  in  direful  ruin.  But  since  this  was  not  to  be, 
since  they  are  so  soft  and  hopeless  and  submissive  a  race,  we  have 
believed  that  justice  had  no  remedy,  and  that  a  race  which 
could  not  help  itself  would  be  forever  unavenged.  [For  many  a 
year  we  rliaughty^  children  of  the  Saxon  race  had  seen 
rders  enlarging,  our  population  increasing,  our  States  mul 
tiplying,  our  schools  and  churches  and  warehouses  and  railways 
and  ships  and  telegraphs  rising  and  swarming  on  every  hand; 
had  seen  the  whole  continent  shining  witnour  splendid  statis 
tics;  and  in  all  the  glittering  years  we  had  not  felt  the  cotton 
harsh  to  the  touch  nor  the  sugar  bitter  to  the  taste,  though  we 
.knew  that  all  that  softness  and  sweetness  grew  in  the  ruin  of  a 
^race.  Our  very  birth-throe  was  justice,  and  we  were  unjust. 
Our  very  breath  was  human  rights,  and  we  destroyed  them.  Our 
very  life  was  liberty,  and  we  denied  it.  LikeJ^glghazzar,  the  na 
tion  sat  feasting,  and  if  for  evanescent  moments  it  saw  the  awful 
words  upon  the  wall,  the  feast  was  so  splendid  that  its  eyes 
were  dazzled.  We  p_nijght.  pvrnses  and  evasigns.  It  was  a  State 
matter,  a  local  law,  an  institution  doomed  to  perish  before  our 
progress.  It  was  a  pity  —  yes,  it  was  a  pity,  but  don't  talk  about  | 
it.  Justice,  liberty,  human  rights  —  yes,  yes;  but  the  thing  is  so 
complicated,  and  rights  are  so  dim  and  shadowy,  and  gold  is  so  , 
bright  and  hard  and  doubles  itself  every  year.  And  we  sighed  ] 
and  smiled  and  sighed  again.  It  is  a  State  matter,  a  local  law,  I 
a  system  doomed  to  perish  —  and  even  while  we  spoke  it  suddenly  j 
towered  before  us  a  hideous,  overpowering  presence,  like  the  f 
genie  before  the  fisherman,  kicked  the  casket  of  compromise  and  ) 


THE   AMERICAN   DOCTRINE   OF  LIBERTY         111 

restraint  into  the  sea,  insolently  declared  itself  the  supreme  lord  , 
of  the  land,  and  the^octrme_oJLlibertiy  a\treasonable  liel 
>  k\  We  could  be  unjust,  we  thought,  for  if  these  slaves  were  men 
they  would  revenge  themselves.  Well,  they  have  not  grasped 
the  sword,  but  how  awful  is  their  vengeance!  They  sit  dis 
mayed  and  uncertain  while  civil  war  shakes  its  fiery  torch  across 
the  land,  dropping  blood  in  its  hideous  path,  stabbing  wives, 
mothers,  sisters,  lovers,  to  the  heart;  dragging  our  young,  our 
brave,  our  beautiful  down  to  ghastly  death;  while  through  the 
fiery  storm  of  wrath  the  voice  of  God  cries  to  our  shrinking 
hearts,  as  to  cowering  Cain  in  the  Garden, "  Where  is  Abel,  whe: 

is  Abel,  thy  brother?  "        p      ' ' 

Gentlemen,  by  the  }urid  jight  of  this  war  we  can  read  our 
duty  very  plainly.  WTe  are  to  remember  that  in  every  free  na 
tion  the  public  safety  and  progress  require  a  double  allegiance  — 
to  the  form  and  to  the  spirit  of  the  government.  By  forgetting  i 
the  spirit  of  our  own,  we  have  imperilled  both  its  form  and  its  \ 
existence.  Therefore,  by  the  sublime  possibility  of  the  great  com-^ 
monwealth  made  to  be  an  intelligent,  industrious,  and  free  people;5 
conscious  of  our  power  against  harm  from  within  and  without; 
by  distance  and  character  removed  from  foreign  ambition,  by 
watchful  intelligence  from  domestic  division;  with  justice  as 
the  bond  of  union  at  home  and  the  pledge  of  respect  abroad;  by 
the  warm  blood  of  our  best  and  dearest  gushing  at  this  moment 
for  this  faith  —  let  us  vow,  with  the  majesty  of  millions  of  con 
senting  hearts  and  voices,  that  we  will  never  again,  God  help 
ing  us,  forget  that  the  cause  of  the  United  States  7.9  t>| 
of  human  nature,  and  that  the  permanent  life  of  th^  nation 
the  liberty  of  all  its  children. 


THE  SCHOLAR  OF  TO-DAY 

BY  FRANCIS  ANDREW  MARCH 

Delivered  before  the  Beta  of  Massachusetts,  at  Amherst  College,  at 
Commencement,  July,  1868. 

UNDER  the  old  philosophy  the  highest  word  was  CULTURE  ; 
under  the  new  philosophy  the  highest  word  is  PROGRESS.  The 
scholar  of  the  old  philosophy  sought,  by  self-development  and 
self-government,  to  educate  himself  to  his  highest  worthiness. 
The  Baconian  devotes  himself  to  the  discovery  of  truth  and  to 
the  progress  of  the  race. 

The  scholar  of  the  old  time  —  the  man  of  perfect  culture, 
trained  of  all  feats  of  mental  activity,  ready  in  all  branches  of 
knowledge,  always  under  control,  strong,  alert,  and  graceful,  the 
delight  of  all  men,  and  women  —  has  often  been  held  up  to  our 
admiration.  Let  us  celebrate  to-day  the  scholar  of  to-day,  the 
servant  of  truth,  the  interpreter  of  nature. 

It  is  a  central  fact  with  the  scholar  of  to-day,  that  he  is  a  work 
ing  member  of  a  great  brotherhood  laboring  together  for  the 
advancement  of  knowledge.  Lord  Bacon  set  forth  his  ideal  of  an 
organization  of  scholars  in  his  House  of  Solomon  in  his  romance 
of  the  New  Atlantis  ;  but  all  the  splendors  of  his  prophetic  im 
agination  pale  before  the  facts  of  to-day.  The  same  general  ends 
and  means  are,  it  is  true,  before  us.  We  still  seek  "the  knowl 
edge  of  causes  and  the  enlarging  of  the  bounds  of  human  em 
pire  to  the  effecting  of  all  things  possible.'*  We  still  use  observa 
tion  and  experiment.  But  the  instruments  and  operations  of 
Solomon's  House  are  child's  toys  and  child's  play  compared 
with  the  wonderful  enginery  with  which  we  vex  and  scrutinize 
earth,  air,  and  sea;  mind  and  matter;  the  present  and  the  far  off; 
and  quicken  the  past  and  the  future. 

Nor  is  the  fraternity  of  workers  less  wonderful.  No  close 
corporation  now  embraces  the  conquerors  of  nature.  The  army 
of  explorers  overruns  the  whole  world.  The  mightiest  nations 
are  privates  in  its  ranks.  The  Czar  of  all  the  Russias  keeps  step 


THE   SCHOLAR   OF   TO-DAY  113 

with  the  imperial  democracy  of  America.  He  uses  his  whole 
empire  as  a  cabinet  and  laboratory.  He  takes  note  of  every  drop 
of  water  that  falls  or  lurks  in  the  air,  of  every  breeze  that  blows, 
every  sunbeam  that  tints  or  warms,  every  tree  and  animal  that 
knows  the  soil.  His  imperial  government  records  the  physical 
facts  and  the  history  of  all  its  tribes  of  men,  catches  every  form 
of  speech  that  drops  from  living  lips  or  lingers  on  old  monuments, 
and  sends  out  all  in  fair  type  for  the  great  fraternity  of  scholars. 
It  experiments  on  new  forms  of  social  organization,  abolishes 
old  penalties,  institutes  new  rewards,  new  tenures,  new  schemes 
of  education,  new  fashions  of  dress,  and  food,  and  manners. 

The  American  scholar  has  the  same  work  before  him.  We  are 
lawyers,  doctors,  preachers,  editors,  engineers,  or  teachers.   We 
also  scholars. 

"With  that  clause 
We  make  drudgery  divine." 

Not  a  plant  is  so  thoroughly  known  that  the  ablest  botanist  can 
write  its  biography.  The  lazy-limbed  lad  with  live  eyes  may  yet 
lie  by  the  old  wall  around  the  College  Campus,  and  watch  the 
lichens  with  his  microscope,  and  see  facts  as  good  as  Robert 
Brown  ever  saw.  New  metals  wait  their  finder,  new  coals,  new 
secrets  of  growth  in  the  soils,  and  all  the  unimaginable  marvels 
which  chemistry  deals  out  with  such  a  lavish  hand  from  her 
infinite  store.  In  these  departments  the  value  of  organized  la 
bor  is  fully  recognized.  We  have  associations  of  science,  which 
every  scholar  can  help,  and  where  the  chiefs  of  each  depart 
ment  are  ready  to  receive  the  smallest  contributions  of  fact  or 
thought,  and  where  no  lover  of  science  fails  to  obtain  sympathy 
and  honor. 

Cooperation  and  progress  should  be  just  as  familiar  to  those 
who  work  in  books  and  language.  A  perfect  edition  of  Shake 
speare,  or  Chaucer,  or  Homer,  or  the  Bible;  or  a  complete  dic 
tionary  of  our  language,  would  be  as  helpful  to  the  race  as  a  per 
fect  flora  or  fauna  of  North  America.  But  such  a  work  must 
accumulate  the  observations  of  a  thousand  scholars  for  a  thou 
sand  years.  Wrhat  scholar  has  not  passages  in  his  favorite  authors 
which  he  understands  better  than  all  the  commentators?  Who 
has  not  noted  strange  words,  or  meanings  of  words,  unknown  to 


114  FRANCIS  ANDREW  MARCH 

Worcester  or  Webster;  or  has  not  hit  an  etymology  which  has 
baffled  the  learned,  or  an  illustrative  sentence  which  opens  the 
soul  of  a  word  with  a  new  completeness?  We  should  have  a  com 
mon  hive  for  all  these  gatherings.  Meantime,  the  Philological 
Society's  Dictionary  is  waiting  for  just  these  facts  and  truths, 
and  the  press  is  always  at  our  service. 

Scholars  should  reverence  the  powers  of  the  press  and  use 
them.  They  too  often  sneer  at  what  it  is  their  sacred  duty  to 
serve.  A  knot  of  professional  men  will  have  their  daily  gibes  at 
the  crude  columns  of  their  local  newspaper.  \Vhy  not  send  the 
broken  meats  from  their  tables  and  feast  the  rustics? 

But  no  duty  has  more  peculiar  claims  on  the  American  scholar 
than  observation  and  experiment  on  man  and  his  institutions, 
with  a  view  to  improve  our  social  organization  and  government, 
and  to  establish  sciences  of  mind,  of  ethnology  and  history,  on 
their  proper  foundations. 

We  already  have  organizations  for  the  advance  of  social  sci 
ence,  and  our  scholars  are  making  valuable  contributions  to  the 
doctrines  of  general  education;  the  treatment  of  the  insane, 
the  idiotic,  and  the  criminal;  of  the  causes  of  disease  and  crime; 
the  laws  of  population;  the  adjustment  of  labor  and  capital. 
They  are  familiar  with  the  fact  that  such  problems  may  be  in 
vestigated  without  mingling  in  party  politics. 

But  the  same  spirit  may  be  carried  into  many  questions  of 
governmental  organization  and  policy.  Each  New  England 
town  is  a  working  model  of  the  state,  in  which  experiments  may 
be  tried  with  little  danger.  The  American  scholar  has  no  excuse 
for  being  an  idiotes.  Many  new  questions  are  before  us. 

Our  government  is  a  representative  democracy.  We  call  it 
a  government  of  the  people,  it  is  really  a  government  of  the 
majority.  In  our  day  tyranny  of  the  majority  is  worse  than  the 
tyranny  of  one  man  or  a  few  men,  because  it  has  no  restraint. 
Conscious  weakness  makes  the  few  cautious.  The  King  of  Eng 
land  has  not  dared  a  veto  for  generations.  The  majority  vaunts 
its  voice  to  be  the  voice  of  God.  Where  this  form  of  atheism 
prevails,  and  minorities  are  regarded  as  opposers  of  manifest 
destiny  —  the  majority  God  —  and  contemned  as  wicked  in 
stead  of  being  heard  and  conciliated  as  equals,  tyranny  of  the 
majority  impends.  The  liberal  leaders  of  European  thought  sup- 


THE   SCHOLAR  OF  TO-DAY  115 

pose  that  this  danger  may  be  averted  by  organizing  all  repre 
sentative  assemblies,  so  that  the  governing  bodies  shall  have 
the  same  proportion  of  parts  which  exists  among  the  people 
themselves.  Then  all  minorities  would  have  weight  in  propor 
tion  to  their  actual  strength,  all  opinions  held  by  able  men  would 
have  able  advocates  in  authority,  and  all  able  men  would  have 
their  chance  for  a  public  career  without  bidding  for  the  vote  of 
a  party.  There  are  doubts  and  difficulties  connected  with  the 
practical  working  of  such  a  scheme,  which  can  best  be  resolved 
by  trying  it,  on  a  smaller  scale,  in  our  voluntary  associations, 
our  private  corporations,  and  the  directories  of  towns.  Here  our 
professional  men  and  scholars  might  promote  the  trial,  and  study, 
and  report  the  results. 

It  is  a  question,  again,  how  far  it  is  desirable  to  introduce  a 
new  moral  element  into  the  balance  of  power  by  giving  the  vote 
to  women. 

Other  questions  are  connected  with  executive  patronage. 
Year  by  year  the  host  who  live  by  their  connection  with  political 
Rings,  grows  rapidly  hi  numbers,  power,  and  shamelessness. 
No  party  can  now  safely  defy  them.  No  politician  can  safely 
refuse  to  recognize  their  leaders  as  his  peers.  They  are  fast  com 
ing  to  control  the  state.  They  make  our  political  life  a  perpetual 
scramble  for  spoils.  All  scholars  know  how  vividly  this  state  of 
things  was  depicted  and  predicted  by  Alexander  Hamilton.  It 
is  now  upon  us,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death.  Our  states 
men  are  proposing  means  of  relief.  Shall  the  tenure  of  office  be 
changed  to  good  behavior?  Shall  the  appointing  power  be  held 
by  Congress? l  Shall  it  be  vested  in  Boards  of  Examiners?  As 
long  as  it  is  massed  in  a  few  hands,  it  will  pay  for  organized  cor 
ruption.  But  it  might  be  diffused  among  the  people.  Each  local 
officer  might  be  chosen  by  the  people  of  his  locality.  The  power 
of  removal,  that  right  hand  of  the  executive,  would  then  give 
him  dignity  and  authority  without  exposure  to  corruption.  A 
trial  of  this  system  might  be  set  on  foot,  if  our  professional  men 
would  refuse  to  sign  papers  recommending  local  officers,  and 
urge  the  nomination  by  a  vote  of  the  precinct.  Such  nominations 

1  Such  a  combination  of  the  legislative  and  executive  functions  would  over 
throw  our  system  of  government,  and  set  up  an  oligarchy,  too  numerous  for 
responsibility,  too  few  to  be  out  of  the  reach  of  Rings. 


116  FRANCIS  ANDREW  MARCH 

would  be  respected  at  Washington,  and  the  plan  grow  in  favor 
in  proportion  to  its  merits. 

Such  are  illustrations  of  the  manner  in  which  the  American 
scholar  may  work  for  the  republic  and  for  man.  I  have  dwelt 
on  them  the  more  because  distaste  for  politics  so  much  affects  us. 
It  is  often  urged  that  scholars  should  take  up  politics  to  purify 
them.  What  has  been  said  would  suggest  that  we  should  seek  to 
withdraw  as  many  questions  of  statesmanship  and  social  science 
as  we  can  from  the  sphere  of  party  politics,  and  hand  them  over 
to  the  investigation  and  experiments  of  our  scholars.  Then  our 
laws  may  answer  to  Bacon's  noble  description  of  those  of  Henry 
VII:  "His  laws,  whoso  marks  them  well,  were  deep  and  not 
vulgar,  not  made  on  the  spur  of  a  particular  occasion  for  the 
present,  but  out  of  providence  for  the  future;  that  he  might  make 
the  estate  of  his  people  more  and  more  happy,  after  the  manner 
of  legislators  in  the  ancient  and  heroical  times." 

It  is  to  such  scholarship  as  this,  that  the  lovers  of  the  race 
turn  for  that  influence  which  shall  make  it  possible  to  have  a 
parliament  of  man,  a  federation  of  the  world;  and  such  scholars 
will  be  the  peers  in  that  parliament,  the  representatives  of  the 
general  reason  of  mankind  in  the  good  time  coming. 

If  the  essential  characteristic  of  the  scholar  of  to-day  be  his 
fellowship  with  the  brotherhood  of  workers  for  progress;  if  devo 
tion  to  the  conquest  of  nature,  the  discovery  of  truth,  and  the 
welfare  of  the  race,  be  the  root  of  true  scholarliness,  we  may  go 
on  to  develop  several  branches  of  the  scholar's  character. 

And  first :  The  scholar  of  to-day  should  devote  himself  to  some 
particular  branch  of  study.  To  accomplish  most  we  must  use 
division  of  labor,  and  this  most  of  all  in  discovery  and  invention. 
It  is  not  the  poet  alone  who  is  born.  Newton,  Faraday,  Alexander 
Hamilton,  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  Bopp,  Grimm,  every  success 
ful  observer,  and  every  creative  genius,  has  his  special  fitness 
for  his  special  field  of  truth.  And  though  Macchiavelli  divides 
mankind  into  those  who  see  of  themselves,  those  who  see  what 
is  shown  them  by  others,  and  those  who  neither  see  of  them 
selves  nor  what  is  shown  them  by  others,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
any  pair  of  eyes  was  ever  made  that  was  not  well  worth  looking 
through.  The  short-sighted  see  what  is  invisible  to  others.  The 
observer  must  find  the  proper  focus  of  his  own  eyes.  And  to  all 


THE  SCHOLAR  OF  TO-DAY  117 

men  the  new  comes  most  as  suggestion  from  the  familiar,  the  long 
brooded  over;  whose  very  aspect  comes  to  mind  without  effort; 
yea,  in  spite  of  effort;  which  haunts  the  thought  by  day  and 
the  dreams  by  night;  which  possesses  one  like  a  passion.  He 
who  would  truly  advance  the  empire  of  man  must  concentrate 
his  sphere  of  thought.  The  scholar,  armed  at  all  points  with 
glittering  generalities,  ready  to  bear  his  part  brilliantly  in  a  dis 
cussion  of  everything  knowable  and  talkable,  ashamed  not  to 
know  when  everybody  lived  and  died,  and  all  about  the  old 
battles  —  of  the  kites  and  crows,  as  Milton  says;  and  talking 

"Frensch  ful  faire  and  fetysly, 
Aftur  the  scole  of  Stratford  atte  Bowe," 

and  other  languages  to  match,  is  not  the  scholar  we  celebrate. 
Such  a  scholar  is  simple,  not  bound  to  shine,  eager  to  hear,  more 
eager  to  see  for  himself,  glad  to  tell  you  what  he  has  seen  for 
himself,  and  well  aware  how  little  he  has  seen,  as  he  has  walked 
by  the  beach  of  the  infinite  ocean  of  truth. 

It  is  a  further  development  of  the  same  thought,  that  the  stu 
dent  should  be  wedded  early  to  particular  truths.  He  will  not 
spend  his  life  in  general  devotion  to  truth,  without  cultivating 
any  one  truth;  celebrating  and  worshipping  truth  as  a  goddess, 
wooing  and  winning  none  of  her  daughters.  It  is  well  enough  in 
the  teens,  this  general  laudation  of  truth,  the  open  mind  flush 
ing  at  every  suggestion  from  man,  or  running  brooks,  or  stones, 
or  anything;  but  the  old  scholars,  who,  having  linked  their 
names  with  no  science  or  art,  revive  their  old  flames  for  our  bene 
fit  in  essays  and  orations,  have  the  lackadaisical  air  of  the  old 
bachelor  who  proclaims  himself  the  devoted  admirer  of  the  ladies. 
The  lover  of  truth  should  fall  in  love  betimes  with  some  partic 
ular  truth,  should  woo  like  a  man  with  his  whole  heart,  marry 
early,  and  be  faithful  as  to  a  spouse  for  generation,  fruit,  and 
comfort. 

It  should  seem,  in  the  third  place,  that  our  scholar  will  seek 
to  learn  facts  and  laws  rather  than  to  practice  mental  gymnas 
tics.  It  is  a  current  thought,  that  the  growth  of  the  mind  is 
analogous  to  that  of  the  body,  that  education  is  a  gymnastics. 
Discipline,  not  truth,  is  said  to  be  the  object  of  study.  The 
search  for  truth  is  said  to  be  better  than  the  possession  of  it. 


118  FRANCIS  ANDREW  MARCH 

There  is  something  in  this  view  peculiarly  fascinating  to  the 
young  and  strong.  What  college  senior  has  not  held  his  breath, 
as  he  has  read  Sir  William  Hamilton's  absorbing  citations  of 
the  exultant  utterances  of  the  heroes  of  literature. 

"Did  the  Almighty,"  says  Lessing,  "holding  in  his  right  hand 
Truth,  and  in  his  left  hand  Search  for  Truth,  deign  to  tender  me 
the  one  I  might  prefer,  in  all  humility,  but  without  hesitation, 
I  should  request  Search  for  Truth."  We  do  not  always  remember 
that  these  exulting  pinions  droop  at  last,  and  that  a  philosophy 
of  nescience  is  the  end  of  this  search.  Good  hunting  and  no 
game  taken  is  a  sorry  jest.  The  savor  of  the  venison  is  needed 
to  stir  us  to  repeat  the  chase.  The  joy  of  capture  is  needed,  that 
we  may  return  with  ardor  to  the  pursuit. 

There  is,  moreover,  in  all  worthy  growth,  as  in  all  magnanim 
ity,  an  emotional  and  moral  element.  A  notable  gymnastic 
cultivation  of  the  attention,  memory,  judgment,  generalization, 
inventive  combination,  and  other  intellectual  faculties,  may 
be  made  by  chess  puzzles.  But  the  judgments  of  wisdom  are  the 
fruit  of  attention  kindled  by  love,  and  directed  by  conscience; 
and  all  imagination,  properly  so  called,  proclaims  the  activity  of 
the  sesthetic  emotions.  The  delight  of  the  possession  of  truth  is 
needed  to  warm  the  soil  from  which  new  thoughts  are  to  spring. 
The  time  comes,  when  old  books,  old  friends,  old  truths,  the 
dear  delights  of  our  youth,  come  to  be  thrice  dear  as  the  recog 
nized  root  of  all  the  growth  of  our  manhood.  There  is,  indeed, 
a  plain  analogy  between  the  training  of  the  special  senses  and 
gymnastics.  The  young  scholar  should  be  practised  to  see,  as 
he  is  to  walk.  Particular  mental  processes  which  need  to  be  often 
repeated,  such  as  the  application  of  the  ground-rules  of  arith 
metic,  or  of  the  rules  of  grammar,  have  an  analogy  with  gym 
nastics,  in  so  far  that  practice  enables  us  to  perform  them  more 
rapidly,  easily,  gracefully,  and  accurately.  The  mind  needs  to  be 
run  in  the  right  ruts.  But  the  growth  of  the  mind,  the  incubation 
and  development  by  which  it  passes  from  imitation  to  creation, 
from  one  stage  of  power  to  another,  learns  to  see  one  truth  after 
another,  has  very  little  analogy  with  the  operations  of  the  body. 
Those  who  have  studied  man  in  history,  especially  those  who 
work  on  his  very  soul  as  it  is  preserved  in  its  progress  by  lan 
guage,  cannot  help  feeling  how  completely  inadequate  are  all 


THE   SCHOLAR   OF  TO-DAY  119 

the  phrases  commonly  used  to  express  this  progress,  how  com 
pletely  unlike  gymnastics  is  the  conversion  of  an  infant  into  a 
ripe  scholar  of  to-day.  The  ablest  savage  left  to  train  his  own 
powers,  is  ages  behind  the  dullest  head  that  learns  to  use  an 
Indo-European  tongue.  Some  naturalists  say  that  the  human 
embryo  passes  through  its  stages  of  likeness  to  a  plant,  and  to 
each  lower  order  of  animals  up  to  man,  completing  in  its  due 
months  the  development  of  a  million  of  millions  of  years.  So 
the  mind,  by  the  aid  of  language  and  the  mysterious  leaven  of 
truth,  completes  in  its  score  of  years  the  proper  growth  of  ages. 
We  are  struck  with  wonder  at  the  operations  of  genius.  We  tax 
our  language  to  express  the  novelty  and  splendor  of  the  changes 
it  works  in  the  world.  We  call  it  inspiration  rather  than  gym 
nastics.  But  by  the  wonderful  power  of  language  and  truth,  we 
may  repeat  in  ourselves  these  same  marvels  of  perception  and 
power. 

An  attempt  to  analyze  this  process,  leads  only  to  profounder 
deeps  of  wonder.  Plato  was  carried  back  by  it  to  infinite  ages  of 
pre existent  life.  He  thought  these  new  ideas  were  only  remi 
niscences;  and  the  philosophic  poets  have  chanted  the  noblest 
responses  to  the  thought,  as  they  have  celebrated 

"  those  shadowy  recollections 
Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day, 
Are  yet  a  master  light  of  all  our  seeing." 

But  if  we  do  not  receive  these  thoughts  of  Plato,  the  word 
education  does  not  express  this  process.  The  genius  inspires  us, 
magnetizes  us.  A  magnet  does  not  educate  a  piece  of  iron  or  steel. 
The  wonderful  thing  is  not  a  drawing  out  of  power  but  some 
mysterious  flowing  in  of  power.  Savage  warriors  imagine  that 
the  strength  of  those  they  conquer  passes  into  them.  The  old 
Hebrew  figures,  too,  are  good.  The  mind  is  soil  for  seed.  The 
germs  of  thought  once  dropped  in  the  mind,  grow  while  we  sleep. 
We  wake  surprised  at  the  greatness  of  the  thought  we  took  in 
over  night,  and  it  spreads  its  branches  day  by  day,  and  year  by 
year;  nor  do  we  always  suspect  what  kind  of  seed  is  planted. 
The  amaranth  springs  among  the  tares  in  the  soul  of  a  tinker's 
apprentice,  "a  weed  of  glorious  feature." 

So  man  is  a  tree  for  graft,  so  he  has  his  new  births.   We  go 


120  FRANCIS  ANDREW  MARCH 

from  grub  to  chrysalis,  from  chrysalis  to  butterfly.  The  history 
of  the  scholar's  mind  is  not  graphically  given  by  any  words 
which  imply  that  it  is  a  gymnastic,  or  solitary  development. 
Even  the  nations  do  not  often  have  an  indigenous  civilization; 
but  are  raised  by  the  efforts  of  foreign  races.  The  individual  is 
lifted  and  expanded  by  communion  with  higher  intelligences, 
mainly  by  the  power  of  higher  minds  acting  through  speech,  and 
by  the  inspiration  of  objective  facts  and  laws.  It  is  not  the  work 
ing  of  the  mind,  considered  as  gymnastics,  which  expands  it 
when  truth  is  gained,  so  much  as  the  possession  of  truth  itself. 
The  effort  swallows  the  leaven;  the  leaven  leavens  the  whole 
man.  The  soul  crawls  in  pursuit  of  truth;  when  it  has  it,  it  may 
flutter  and  soar  in  the  play  of  its  creative  energy.  There  is  work 
in  getting  a  truth  into  the  mind,  there  may  be  play  in  its  pos 
session.  The  latter  is  the  true  progress,  the  greatness,  and  the 
glory  of  the  soul. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  language  is  the  scholar's  tri  *  foster- 
mother.  She  takes  the  infant,  and  introduces  him  to  nature  by 
name.  The  senses  give  only  indefinite  apparitions,  or,'  -tuitions. 
These  become  knowledge,  information,  when  particular  objects, 
qualities,  or  acts  are  singled  out  and  examined.  What  shall  be  so 
singled  out  is  determined  almost  wholly  by  language.  The 
learner  follows  the  names  which  his  elders  so  eagerly  teach  him. 
Language  in  this  way  prompts  and  directs  his  classifications; 
she  leads  him  on  to  reasoning,  supplies  him  with  instruments, 
and  suggests  the  arguments.  She  is  the  interpreter  between  the 
scholar  and  the  great  discoveries  of  all  time.  Shapen  into  litera 
ture  under  the  direction  of  the  aesthetic  faculty,  language  moulds 
his  passions  and  sentiments  to  sympathy  with  the  great  hearts 
and  souls  whose  words  of  fire  she  loves  to  repeat,  lifts  him  from 
his  feet  with  the  great  voice  of  eloquence,  raises  his  religious 
feelings  to  supernatural  elevation  by  her  utterance  of  the  re 
vealed  word,  and  prompts  him  to  graceful  and  noble  utterancy, 
which  may  win  all  men  to  the  truths  he  loves. 

Language  is  the  nurse  of  science  historically.  The  philosophy 
of  Greece  appears  before  us  in  the  Socratic  discussions  as  a  child 
of  language  still  in  leading  strings.  Its  questions  and  its  argu 
mentation  do  not  distinguish  thought  as  thought,  from  the  use 
of  language.  It  was  not  till  the  development  of  geometry,  that 


THE  SCHOLAR  OF  TO-DAY  121 

coherent  thinking  was  known,  independent  of  the  thoughts  em 
bodied  in  popular  speech.  And  though  the  sciences  of  to-day 
have  their  own  language,  the  true  scholar  never  so  weans  him 
self  from  this  foster-mother  of  sciences  and  scholars,  that  he 
does  not  desire  to  confide  his  thoughts  to  her  —  does  not  run  to 
her  with  delight  at  each  new  discovery. 

It  would  seem,  further,  that  the  pursuit  of  truth  in  nature  is 
analogous  to  the  study  of  language.  The  great  stone-book  is  the 
geologist's  name  for  the  earth.  Says  the  botanist,  Bernard 
Jussieu,  "The  perfect  book  is  open  to  all;  it  is  only  necessary  to 
learn  to  read  it."  "There  is  a  certain  character,  or  style,"  says 
Dugald  Stewart  on  the  hint  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  "in  the  opera 
tions  of  the  Divine  Wisdom,  ...  in  the  perception  of  which 
philosophical  sagacity  and  genius  seem  chiefly  to  consist."  He 
who  has  interpreted  one  fact,  learns  to  interpret  another  and 
another;  -  .^zing  on  one  truth,  we  learn  how  to  recognize  its  sister 
truths;  >  dving  learned  to  read  the  handwriting  on  one  page,  we 
may  turn  to  another  and'  read  with  ease.  An  eminent  educator 
has  enforced  his  doctrine  of  "power-culture"  by  saying  that 
Napoleon  might  have  summoned  all  the  force  of  his  mighty 
mind,  and  struck  out  at  a  blow  a  new  system  of  Mental  Philoso 
phy!  But  such  blows  are  never  struck.  Truth  is  not  conquered; 
it  is  read.  It  comes  to  earnest,  humble  seekers.  The  mighty 
mother  unveils  her  face  to  the  child.  He  who  is  smitten  with 
love  for  that  face,  into  whose  soul  those  divine  traits  are  burned, 
seeks  them  forever,  and  traces  them  through  all  veils. 

It  would  seem,  further,  that  our  reader  of  nature,  our  lover  of 
truth  and  progress,  is  least  of  all  men  pugnacious.  It  has  ceased 
to  be  the  scholar's  fitting  eulogy  that  he  is  a  war-horse,  even 
against  error. 

In  the  first  place,  the  history  of  errors  shows  that  they  are  not 
quelled  by  fighting  them.  Witchcraft  and  like  delusions  show 
brave  fight  for  centuries,  then  die,  because  men  are  lifted  to  a 
higher  plane  of  thought  by  the  power  of  new  truths.  The  scholar, 
as  he  labors  for  the  progress  of  the  race,  will  seek  to  use  the  ex 
pulsive  power  of  new  truth,  rather  than  arm  himself  and  ride 
forth  to  give  battle  to  monsters  and  chimeras.  Such  is  the  method 
which  Lord  Bacon  inculcates.  Such  is  the  method  of  Christian 
progress. 


122  FRANCIS  ANDREW   MARCH 

So,  in  a  subjective  point  of  view,  it  would  seem  that  struggles 
and  skepticism  are  by  no  means  a  desirable  propcedeutic  for  the 
scholar.  There  is  a  masterly  pugnacity  in  man  which  makes  us 
exult  in  battle  and  conquest.  It  is  hardly  weaker  now  than  it 
was  before  Christ.  Two  thousand  years  of  lip-assent  to  his 
teachings  have  hardly  dimmed  the  warrior's  glory.  Our  genera 
tion,  indeed,  begins  to  hear  its  heroes  announce,  "The  empire  is 
peace":  "Let  us  have  peace":  and  this  is  great  gain.  But  the 
old  Berserker  blood  still  runs  duly  in  our  Puritan  veins.  The 
historian  says:  "It  was  ever  the  fashion  of  Cromwell's  pike- 
men  to  rejoice  greatly  when  they  beheld  the  enemy,"  and  the 
reverberation  of  that  shout  of  stern  exultation  has  not  yet  died 
in  our  Southern  savannahs.  The  same  blood  shows  itself  in  our 
intellectual  efforts.  Our  very  peace  societies  are  pugnacious  in 
putting  down  other  people's  wars,  as  well  as  in  defending  our 
own.  It  is  characteristic  of  New  England  college  culture  to 
pride  itself  on  its  struggles.  We  go  to  our  recitations  with  hearts 
of  controversy.  We  enter  the  lists  of  debate  in  our  society  halls, 
as  the  knights  came  forth  at  the  sound  of  the  trumpet.  We  talk 
of  these  halls  as  arenas,  where  we  may  "drink  delight  of  battle 
with  our  peers,"  and  be  fitted  for  the  great  battle  of  life.  This 
temper  has  its  honors.  It  is  better  than  sensuality.  It  is  better 
than  stagnation.  I  confess  to  the  relish  of  these  delights. 

"Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay."  It  is 
most  truly  a  preparation  for  the  battle  of  life.  But  the  young 
Puritan  no  more  needs  a  kindling  of  the  spirit  of  battle  than  the 
young  tiger  needs  to  lap  blood.  And  from  the  point  of  view 
which  has  been  taken  to-day,  it  may  be  seen  that  we  are  apt  to 
overrate  the  influence  of  disputatious  adroitness.  Shakespeare's 
fools  are  the  "smartest"  men  in  his  plays.  Great  men  of  action 
are  seldom  disputants,  great  men  of  thought  perhaps  still  less 
so.  The  great  thinker  answers  other  men's  arguments  by  stat 
ing  the  truth  as  he  sees  it.  When  we  have  been  years  out  of  col 
lege,  we  find  that  it  is  not  the  struggles  of  the  recitation  room, 
or  the  society  hall,  perhaps,  that  make  epochs;  but  the  summer 
evenings  on  the  chapel  steps,  the  simmering  of  thought  and 
heart  at  the  hearth  of  a  friend,  from  which  sprang  the  thoughts 
which  made  us  free  of  the  realms  of  beauty  and  truth. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  thought  of  the  fight  against  error 


THE   SCHOLAR  OF  TO-DAY  123 

in  other  respects,  its  association  with  skepticism  is  surely  un- 
scholarly.  The  scholar  in  these  times  should  believe  all  he  can. 
He  must  not  stand  of  set  purpose  in  a  skeptical  attitude.  Yet 
our  young  men  often  feel  as  though  they  are  only  half -educated, 
if  they  have  not  doubted  everything  their  elders  believe.  The 
bright-minded  college  student  has  his  attack  of  skepticism  as 
surely  as  the  boy  has  his  measles  and  whooping-cough.  He 
doubts  the  existence  of  matter,  of  mind.  The  sciences  in  suc 
cession  are  shaken  from  their  moorings.  Mental  philosophy, 
logic,  political  economy,  history,  religion,  drift  into  the  shadow 
of  doubt.  The  seeds  of  truth,  just  germinating  in  his  mind  when 
he  enters  college,  he  pulls  up  for  examination  as  recklessly  as 
children  take  up  the  seeds  in  their  garden  beds.  But  fruitful 
truths,  never  to  be  doubted,  should  possess  the  mind  of  youth, 
and,  by  their  proper  growth,  fill  it  and  expand  it  from  month  to 
month,  expelling  errors  as  simply  as  day  drives  away  darkness. 
It  may  be  further  remarked,  that  a  scholarship  of  self-for- 
getfulness,  of  an  objective  direction  and  employment  of  the 
faculties,  will  show  itself  in  literature.  Instead  of  general  flour 
ishes  about  the  pursuit  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good 
—  the  dumb-bells  and  vocal  gymnastics  of  our  culture,  which  our 
authors  never  will  lay  down  —  the  scholar  of  to-day  will  set  to 
work  on  some  science  of  plants,  like  Goethe,  or  at  making  a 
dictionary,  like  Jean  Paul  and  Milton,  or  at  ichthyology,  or 
entomology,  or  social  science  —  any  way  to  learn  the  handling 
of  the  keys  which  unlock  the  secrets  of  nature,  any  way  to  find 
the  charm  to  open  the  heart-gates  to  the  entrance  of  angels. 
New  spheres  of  positive  thought  will  thus  be  brought  under  the 
shaping  power  of  the  aesthetic  faculty,  and  expressed  in  harmo 
nious  utterance  whose  cadences  have  been  caught  afresh  from 
nature.  A  new  and  greater  Iliad,  Kalawala,  and  Beowulf  will  be 
possible,  —  simple,  grand,  natural,  as  the  old  folk-songs  of 
heroes,  but  of  a  higher  strain  than  the  ages  of  kings  and  carnage 
ever  knew.  Our  critics,  too,  will  know  the  traits  of  nature,  and 
never  mistake  the  watching  and  recording  of  sensuality,  which 
now  threatens  us  with  a  new  era  in  literature;  never  mistake 
these  long-drawn  eunuch  dallyings  of  Swinburne  or  Whitman 
for  the  throes  of  virility,  or  a  mountainous  consciousness  for 
manhood. 


124  FRANCIS  ANDREW  MARCH 

Much  might  be  said  of  the  relation  of  these  views  to  educa 
tion.  We  have  made  a  distinction  between  studies  of  gymnastic, 
and  studies  of  incubation  and  development.  A  college  must  be 
in  great  part  gymnastic:  that  is  to  say,  it  must  be  occupied  in 
training  students  to  working  habits  in  the  use  of  the  laws  of 
language  and  the  simpler  mathematics,  and  in  actual  manipula 
tion  in  the  natural  sciences.  This  gymnastic  training  should  be 
on  such  subjects,  and  within  such  limits,  as  will  most  aid  future 
progress. 

In  Language,  it  would  seem  wrong  to  spend  a  long  time  in 
learning  to  talk  a  little  bad  Latin,  or  French,  or  German,  so  as 
to  be  ready  if  we  ever  should  make  a  three  weeks*  tour  of  the 
continents.  Learning  to  talk  requires  a  wholly  different  gymnas 
tic  from  other  mastery  of  speech. 

The  Mathematics,  in  addition  to  their  much  commended 
virtues,  are,  I  believe,  the  best  intellectual  safeguard  against 
college  pyrrhonism.  I  have  known  more  than  one  who  held  by 
that  anchor,  when  heaven  and  earth  seemed  to  mix. 

The  Natural  Sciences  do  not  always  deserve  their  reputation 
as  bread-and-butter  sciences.  Professors  of  Natural  History  ex 
pound  the  structure  of  the  useless  plants  and  animals.  The  great 
Jussieu  cautions  his  collectors  against  varieties  produced  by 
cultivation.  These  should  be  left,  he  says,  to  the  amateurs. 
Rumford  may  found  a  mechanical  institute  for  real  workers,  but 
as  soon  as  the  lords  and  ladies  begin  to  come  to  the  lectures,  the 
scheme  changes.  But  the  uses  of  manipulation  cannot  be  over 
stated.  Chemistry,  the  idlest  of  all  text-book  or  lecture  studies, 
is  the  best  for  the  gymnastic  of  manipulation;  Botany  next. 
These  make  a  new  man  of  the  obtusest  and  clumsiest.  Preci 
sion,  purity,  dexterity,  grace,  of  hand,  eye,  and  mind,  are  their 
gift. 

To  the  more  common  gymnastic  studies  should  be  added  the 
English  Language  and  Constitutional  Law.  Latin  and  Greek 
are  an  admirable  introduction  to  the  freer  and  higher  forms  of 
speech  which  the  advancing  nations  have  since  shaped  for  them 
selves.  Representative  passages  of  the  representative  works  of 
the  representative  authors  of  the  great  epochs  of  modern  thought 
should  be  studied  in  the  light  of  modern  philology,  line  by  line, 
and  word  by  word.  And  we  should  add  scholarly  judgment  to 


THE   SCHOLAR   OF  TO-DAY  125 

the  instinct  with  which  we  speak  our  mother  English,  the  growth 
of  all  the  ages.  Every  college  student  should  know  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States  better  than  the  rules  for  syntax,  by 
rote  and  by  heart. 

The  method  to  be  used  in  the  studies  of  incubation  and  de 
velopment  is  different  from  that  in  studies  of  gymnastic.  The 
last  begin  with  the  simplest  processes,  and  with  tireless  repeti 
tion  lead  on  to  the  more  powerful,  rapid,  and  complex.  The 
others  almost  reverse  the  process.  The  intellect  and  emotions 
must  be  roused  at  once.  When  the  artist  would  awaken  the  per 
ception  of  beauty,  he  takes  us  first  to  St.  Peter's.1  The  grand 
half-outlined  thoughts  of  geology,  exultant,  all-embracing  sys 
tems  of  the  cosmos,  the  reconstruction  of  the  primeval  and  the 
unwritten  history  of  man  from  language,  the  records  of  old  he 
roism  looming  large  through  the  mists  of  antiquity,  the  thoughts 
of  old  thinkers  interpreted  by  new  thinkers,  the  strange  beauty 
of  old  languages,  anticipations  of  new  truths  hovering  round  the 
lips  and  eyes  of  genius,  visions  of  the  future,  —  these  have  power 
to  kindle  the  enthusiasm  and  quicken  the  intellect  of  youth. 
Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  how  far  the  greatness  of  New  Eng 
land  is  due  to  the  quickening  of  her  common  mind  by  the  truths 
of  theology.  The  Westminster  Catechism  is  a  battery  that  gives 
a  rousing  shock. 

It  would  fall  in  well  with  such  views,  if  a  considerable  part  of 
the  college  course  should  present  a  number  of  elective  studies, 
in  which  each  student  might  follow  his  own  bent,  in  the  pursuit 
of  particular  sciences  or  branches  of  learning,  in  connection  with 
professors,  who  are  themselves  rejoicing  in  investigations  and 
discoveries  of  their  own. 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  as  though  culture  and  devotion  to  the 
progress  of  science  and  the  race  did  not  go  together.  It  is  often 
said  that  the  individual  withers  as  the  race  is  more  and  more. 
It  is  said  that  devotion  to  objective  results  in  some  particular 
branch  of  knowledge  changes  man  to  a  mere  tool,  a  one-sided 
monster,  a  blacksmith's  arm,  a  weaver's  thumb,  developed  in 
but  one  direction,  and  hence  not  developed  at  all  as  man,  a 
sacrifice  to  nature  and  material  ends. 

If  this  were  so,  two  of  the  highest  principles  in  man  would  be 

1  Corinne,  iv,  3. 


126  FRANCIS  ANDREW  MARCH 

in  conflict;  for  surely  love  of  a  beautiful  manhood  is  a  passion 
hardly  less  strong  and  noble  than  love  of  truth.  No  Amherst 
student  of  our  day  was  not  moved  to  admiration  and  longing  by 
the  vivid  picture  so  masterly  painted  by  our  Professor  of  Greek, 
of  Socrates  the  son  of  Sophroniscus,  the  statuary,  as  he  takes  his 
thought  from  the  shaping  of  the  marble  figures  around  him,  and 
resolves  to  mould  his  own  character  to  the  model  of  ideal  beauty. 
It  is  said  that  happiness  is  not  to  be  reached  by  direct  pursuit, 
but  is  a  bounty  bestowed  on  him  who  works  hard  for  worthy 
ends.  May  it  not  be  so  with  culture?  What  is  a  beautiful  char 
acter?  What  is  a  well-developed  manhood?  Is  there  beauty  in 
dependent  of  all  relations?  Would  Apollo's  arm  be  beautiful 
wielding  the  blacksmith's  hammer? 

Great  men  are  not  great  in  all  things.  In  all  works  of  art  there 
is  orderly  subordination,  a  variety  brought  to  unity  by  relations 
to  something  central  and  supreme.  Every  beautiful  growth  has 
its  axis  or  centre  of  growth.  So  in  men  of  admirable  character 
there  is  some  heroic  trait,  some  axis  of  growth.  Some  supreme 
power  shows  itself,  and  the  others  work  to  heighten  its  effect. 
Nor  are  all  men  alike  in  their  type  of  beauty.  They  are  various 
as  the  departments  of  thought  and  life.  A  sincere  devotion  to 
some  special  sphere  of  labor,  is  the  best  means  of  harmonious 
development.  As  the  advancing  mind  rises  to  higher  relations 
of  the  special  pursuit,  the  view  widens,  new  powers  are  called 
forth,  and  brought  into  harmonious  working  with  the  old.  Such 
is  the  harmony  between  the  world  and  the  soul  that  the  leadings 
of  nature  may  be  trusted  to  the  end. 

"Unless  above  himself  he  can 
Erect  himself,  how  poor  a  thing  is  man." 

Even  the  intuitions  need  exercise  on  nature  for  their  full  de 
velopment.  How  does  space  expand  to  the  astronomer,  time  to 
the  geologist,  right  to  the  student  of  God  in  history ! 

Nor  will  it  befit  this  presence  to  pass  over  the  more  secret 
reason  why  truth  and  material  nature  so  inspire  and  develop. 
What  is  truth,  but  fact  seen  as  the  embodiment  of  law,  which  is 
the  will  of  God?  And  this  complex  of  facts  which  we  call  nature, 
what  is  it  but  a  material  expression  of  the  character  of  God?  As 
the  student  of  the  tribes  of  nature  seeks  to  rise  from  the  history 


THE   SCHOLAR  OF  TO-DAY  127 

of  individuals  to  a  scientific  knowledge  of  species,  to  conceive 
the  types  of  genera  and  families,  he  is  not  abstracting  and  com 
bining  by  whim;  these  types  were  present  to  the  mind  of  God 
before  they  were  in  nature.  The  attempt  to  find  them,  is  an 
attempt  to  rethink  the  thoughts  of  God.  And  as  in  thinking 
the  thoughts  of  the  wise  and  great  we  enter  into  their  life,  so 
in  reading  the  book  of  nature,  we  may  be  raised  to  communion 
with  God,  and  rise  above  ourselves,  height  above  height. 

This  view  of  the  sacredness  of  nature,  plain  to  the  ancient 
Hebrews,  not  unseen  by  Plato,  lost  by  reaction  from  Grecian 
and  Roman  nature-worship,  has  been  regained  to  our  literature 
from  the  grandest  of  unchristian  modern  thinkers,  the  Jew  of 
Jews,  "God-intoxicated  Spinoza."  The  true  scholar  will  not 
fail  to  recognize,  as  its  necessary  complement,  the  central  thought 
of  the  philosophy  of  Paul,  the  mystical  union  of  man  with  Christ, 
by  which  the  inmost  fountain  of  the  human  will  itself  may 
be  filled  with  the  divine  life,  as  the  branch  with  the  life  of 
the  vine. 

And  if  it  be  true  in  the  intellect,  that  self-renunciation,  devo 
tion  to  man  and  science,  the  objective  direction  and  employment 
of  the  faculties  is  more  favorable  to  the  harmonious  and  orderly 
development  of  man,  than  any  deliberate  gymnastics,  it  can 
hardly  be  less  so  in  morals  and  manners. 

God  forbid  that  the  grand  old  name  of  gentleman  should  ever 
be  dissociated  from  the  name  of  scholar.  There  are  other  types 
of  the  /caXo?  icayaQos  than  the  princes  of  the  last  generation  who 
were  the  first  gentlemen  of  Europe.  He  who  does  many  things 
gracefully  from  a  sense  of  his  own  worthiness,  may  yet  fall 
short  of  the  perfection  of  him  who  forgets  himself  in  others, 
in  truth,  in  God. 

There  is  no  need  in  this  presence  to  search  history  for  illus 
trations.  As  I  have  been  tracing  these  traits  of  the  scholar  of 
to-day,  how  often  have  my  thoughts  reverted  to  the  Chris 
tian  scholar  who  presided  over  this  institution  during  our 
college  days.1 

Always  most  earnest  in  his  recognition  of  the  great  brother 
hood  of  scholars,  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  suggest,  as  he  was 
the  first  to  preside  over,  the  American  Association  of  Science. 
1  Edward  Hitchcock. 


128  FRANCIS   ANDREW   MARCH 

Wedded  in  youth  to  geology,  he  loved  most  that  aspect  of  it 
which 

"  seeks  in  golden  chains  to  bind 
Science  with  reverence,  liberty  with  law." 

Constant  through  life,  giving  his  whole  heart  to  truth,  he  rose 
from  one  stage  of  intimacy  to  another  with  the  secrets  of  nature 
which  are  the  revelation  of  God.  Losing  self  wholly  in  the  con 
templation  of  His  ends,  shrinking  always  from  conflict  and  con 
troversy,  regretting  the  loss  of  a  day  of  doubt,  believing  every 
thing  he  could,  a  soft,  meek,  patient,  humble,  tranquil  spirit,1 
he  was  also  a  man  to  stand  before  princes,  a  man  who  could 
pledge  noblemen  at  their  own  tables  in  his  cup  of  cold  water 
with  a  simple  grace  more  beautiful  than  the  color  of  their  choicest 
wine. 

Few  students  of  Amherst,  while  he  was  here,  can  have  read 
Hawthorne's  story  of  the  Great  Stone  Face,  without  thought  that 
its  hero  was  with  us.  As  he  came  in  hours  of  sickness  or  trouble; 
or  as,  in  his  lectures,  he  kindled  to  the  height  of  his  great  argu 
ment;  or  as,  in  the  college  chapel,  when  one  read  from  the  grand 
poem  of  Moses  those  scenes  of  creation  so  vivid  to  him,  and  the 
evening  or  the  morning  light  saw  that  benign  face  instinctively 
turning  upward,  radiant  with  the  gleam  that  never  was  on  sea 
or  land,  the  consecration  of  truth  and  goodness,  who  of  us  failed 
to  remember  those  inspired  utterances,  dearest  to  every  true 
scholar: 

"  The  pure  in  heart  shall  see  God." 

"The  beauty  of  the  Lord  our  God  be  upon  us." 

1  "The  best  of  men 

That  e'er  wore  earth  about  him,  was  a  sufferer; 
A  soft,  meek,  patient,  humble,  tranquil  spirit; 
The  first  true  gentleman  that  ever  breathed." 

—  Thomas  Dekker. 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  AMERICAN 

HISTORY 

BY  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Rhode  Island,  at  Brown  University, 
June  15,  1875. 

OUR  theme  should  be  fitting  to  the  year  of  centennial  anni 
versaries,  of  which  we  are  passing  the  threshold.  It  is  apparent 
that  the  present  and  few  succeeding  years,  recalling  the  days  of 
our  first  declared  nationality  and  the  series  of  measures  in  the 
council  and  the  field  which  gave  success  to  the  declaration,  will 
become  henceforth  memorable  for  festal  days.  We  are  to  have 
a  time  of  competitive  celebrations  marked  by  liberal  pageant 
in  token  of  martial  events,  and  the  sensuous  parts  of  our  na 
ture  are  likely  to  be  worked  to  their  capacity.  Of  all  that  which 
is  to  be  commemorated  the  share  most  striking  to  the  average 
every-day  senses  undoubtedly  comes  from  the  narrative  of 
arms,  and  it  meets  a  responsive  magnet  in  a  people  under  whose 
sober  side  touches  of  military  spirit  have  always  found  quick 
reception.  They  have  inherited  a  taste  of  the  soldier's  life. 
Descended  from  ancestors  who  for  more  than  one  hundred  years 
after  cisatlantic  colonization  were  engaged  in  war  or  were  every 
moment  exposed  to  it,  summoned  now  by  these  thick-coming 
anniversaries  to  recite  the  annals  of  the  field  and  to  realize  in 
their  own  quickened  pulse  the  rapture  of  victory,  we  need  not 
wonder  that  they  seize  upon  methods  of  commemoration  the 
most  demonstrative,  the  most  cognizable  by  the  outward  senses; 
that  they  subordinate  the  oration  to  the  spectacle;  that  they 

"Let  the  kettle  to  the  trumpet  speak, 
The  trumpet  to  the  cannoneer  without, 
The  cannons  to  the  heavens,  the  heaven  to  earth." 

This  is  according  to  nature,  this  is  Anglo-Saxon,  this  is  Ameri 
can.  But  it  belongs  to  an  assembly  of  educated  men  to  discharge 
the  same  duty  in  another  mode  of  procedure.  They  penetrate 
beneath  the  surface  of  historical  narrative,  behind  the  scenery 


130  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

of  battles,  among  the  more  subtile  forces  of  our  national  devel 
opment,  which  have  been  chief  agencies  in  conducting  us  to 
the  high  situation  from  which  the  celebrants  may  now  deliver 
their  pyrotechnics. 

We  cannot  pass  in  review  from  our  own  advanced  position 
over  the  stirring  Revolutionary  stage,  over  the  broad  and  pic 
turesque  colonial  period,  back  to  the  more  serious  era  of  the 
advent  and  settlement,  and  not  pay  tribute  to  the  age  which 
went  before  them  all,  out  of  which  they  sprung,  a  part  of  which 
they  were  —  to  the  masters  who  directed  the  mind  of  England 
two  centuries  and  a  half  ago,  who  came  here  in  person  and  in 
representatives,  whose  association  with  our  subsequent  history 
is  immortal.  Our  epic  from  the  first  embarkation  down  to  the 
last  admission  of  a  State  is  especially  interesting  to  the  intelli 
gent  inquirer  for  the  spiritualistic,  the  intellectual  element  which 
preceded  and  gave  it  birth,  animated  it  in  all  its  parts,  supplied 
its  actors  with  motive  power,  which  has  made  it  the  story  of  a 
people  sprung  from  the  best  race  of  men  at  the  time  of  its  ma 
tured  strength,  and  advancing  to  a  higher  plane  of  civilization 
than  that  upon  which  it  began.  The  heroic  courage,  the  sorrow 
and  suffering,  the  adventure  and  enterprise  which  mark  the 
century  from  1660,  when  the  colonies  had  acquired  a  fixed  and 
homogeneous  condition,  down  to  declared  independence,  which 
gave  to  it  in  the  reading  the  changing  shades  of  serious  annals 
and  gay  romance,  were  the  natural  flowering  of  the  English 
mind  under  the  training  of  an  equal  period  preceding. 

The  beginning  of  the  American  people  was  but  the  transfer 
to  the  transatlantic  continent  of  an  eclectic  and  adventurous 
portion  of  the  English  nation.  These  passing  anniversaries 
carry  us  back  indeed  to  stages  of  infancy  as  to  numbers,  as  to 
material  appointments  and  possessions,  but  in  the  higher  forces 
of  civilization,  manhood,  and  culture,  there  was  here  from  the 
start  the  same  maturity  which  crowned  the  English  communi 
ties  in  the  golden  age  of  Elizabeth  and  her  successor.  When 
ever  you  contemplate  what  that  maturity  was,  how  broad  in 
studied  letters  and  statesmanship,  in  progressive  science  and 
art,  and  especially  how  it  bore  on  its  advancing  crest  the  prom 
ise  of  deliverance  from  spiritual  bondage,  you  are  contemplat 
ing  the  actual  state  of  the  mind  of  the  planters  of  this  nation 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP   IN   HISTORY        131 

when  they  stepped  from  an  old  country  to  a  new,  only  changing 
the  scene  of  their  life  in  the  conflicts  of  their  age.  The  spirit  of 
Northern  Europe  was  then  for  the  first  time  in  full  activity 
under  immense  influences  proceeding  from  the  Reformation 
and  the  introduction  of  the  art  of  printing.  At  Frankfort-on- 
the-Main  the  traveller  walks  from  the  public  square,  where  the 
memorial  group  of  bronze  statues  commemorates  the  introduc 
tion  of  printing,  to  the  house  in  which  Luther  once  lodged  while 
in  the  flesh,  feeling  that  he  is  venerating  in  authentic  symbols 
the  authors  of  a  revolution  of  which  the  benefits  have  reached  to 
every  fireside  in  Christendom.  Slowly  overcoming  the  sleep  of 
the  Northern  communities,  and  moving  with  the  Divine  assur 
ance  which  always  accompanies  every  true  reform,  these  resist 
less  agencies  at  length  imparted  a  stimulation  to  the  mental 
habits  of  Great  Britain  which  the  successors  of  the  Virgin  Queen 
might  check,  indeed,  but  could  not  suppress.  The  publication 
of  the  results  of  maritime  voyage  and  discovery  on  this  conti 
nent  spread  a  glamour  over  the  spirit  of  curious  and  daring  men, 
which  scarcely  the  sternest  disappointment  and  disaster  could 
dispel.  The  tide  was  rising  to  its  flood  at  the  opening  of  the  sev 
enteenth  century.  A  higher  poetry  and  philosophy,  strange 
religious  rhapsody  and  religious  exploration,  the  lessons  of  an 
cient  and  heroic  freedom  brought  out  into  alluring  light  by  the 
changed  tastes  and  opportunities  for  the  old  languages,  a  wider 
education,  another  dispensation  over  the  domain  of  practical 
science  and  invention,  a  new  destiny  for  the  aim  of  benevolence 
and  philanthropy,  wisdom  of  every  degree,  conceits  of  every  kind, 
but  in  all  and  through  all  a  paramount  and  aggressive  progress 
lighted  the  modern  world  on  its  pathway.  For  the  next  fifty 
years  the  air  was  exhilarant  with  intellectual  vitality.  The  gen 
ius  of  change  penetrated  the  palace,  the  closet,  and  the  shop,  and 
throughout  the  capital  city  of  our  race  the  vigil  of  night  was 
kept  faithful  to  the  revolutionary  studies.  "God  is  decreeing," 
Milton  said,  "to  begin  some  new  and  great  period";  and  then 
with  quaint  expression  of  the  national  self-consciousness  which 
has  never  gone  out  of  his  countrymen  from  that  day  to  this,  he 
adds :  — 

What  does  God  then  but  reveal  himself,  as  his  manner  is,  first  to  his 
Englishmen?  Behold  now  this  vast  city;  a  city  of  refuge,  the  mansion- 


132  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

house  of  liberty,  encompassed  and  surrounded  with  his  protection;  the 
shop  of  war  hath  not  there  more  anvils  and  hammers  waking,  to  fashion 
out  the  plates  and  instruments  of  armed  justice  in  defence  of  belea 
guered  truth,  than  there  be  pens  and  hands  there,  sitting  by  their  studi 
ous  lamps,  musing,  searching,  revolving  new  notions  and  ideas  where 
with  to  present  as  with  their  homage  and  their  fealty  the  approaching 
reformation:  others  as  fast  reading,  trying  all  things,  assenting  to  the 
force  of  reason  and  convincement. 

Such  was  that  age;  and  such  was  the  strength  of  the  Ameri 
can  beginning.  Out  of  that  age  and  under  that  lead  we  came. 
Ours  was  not  a  transfusion  of  blood  from  one  set  of  men  into 
another;  nor  an  offshoot;  nor  an  engraftment;  it  was  the  re 
moval  of  ripening  English  minds  in  English  bodies  into  an 
other  country.  During  the  fifty  years  of  active  emigration  as 
good  came  here  as  were  left  behind.  The  early  peopling  of  Vir 
ginia  was  by  the  average  Cavaliers  of  the  day,  under  the  direc 
tion  of  higher  grades  of  intellect  at  their  lead,  and  there  was 
soon  present  a  large  array  of  men  of  education,  property,  and 
condition;  Maryland  from  the  outset  rose  upon  the  shoulders  of 
persons  of  high  birth,  moved  to  their  destination  by  the  best 
thought  at  home;  the  ships  of  Massachusetts  brought  here 
many  of  the  choice  sons  of  education,  scholars  in  the  languages, 
of  culture  the  same  that  prevailed  in  England,  not  cosmic  in 
deed  as  modern  learning,  for  the  old  scholastic  studies  of  the 
schoolmen  then  overlaid  the  universal  mind  of  Europe.  The 
names  of  these  intellectual  leaders  are  too  many  and  too  famil 
iar  to  need  repeating;  they  rise  at  every  recurring  thought  of 
the  earliest  religious  freedom  of  the  world  in  Maryland,  and  of  the 
most  powerful  republican  theocracy  of  the  world  in  Massachu 
setts.  Then  we  ought  to  consider  that  these  heads  of  the  nas 
cent  provinces  were  in  constant  intercourse  and  contact  with 
the  best  talent  and  wisdom  of  Europe,  and  that  our  separate 
colonial  histories,  down  to  the  very  day  of  independence,  asso 
ciate  the  new  country  and  the  old  by  ties  which  linked  together 
in  personal  relations  the  wise  and  great  of  both  lands.  Winthrop 
and  Endicott,  Cotton  and  Hooker,  and  their  associated  mana 
gers  in  the  other  provinces,  brought  with  them  and  kept  up 
afterwards  acquaintance  with  the  upper  life  on  the  other  side. 
At  one  time  or  another,  on  this  or  the  other  side  of  the  ocean, 
the  heads  of  these  provinces  were  in  living  familiarity  with  the 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  HISTORY          133 

high  discussions  and  high  disputants  under  two  reigns;  they 
saw  and  heard  Lord  Bacon  when  he  pleaded  gently  and  wisely 
for  toleration;  they  remembered  Witgift  speaking  softly  for 
them,  and  Bancroft  with  his  frown;  they  caught  light  from  all 
the  central  sources;  they  learned  stability  of  faith  from  Pym 
and  from  Sidney,  and  public  law  from  Hale  and  from  Coke; 
they  received  direct  communication  and  counsel  from  John 
Hampden;  they  read  and  perhaps  saw  acted  the  picturesque 
and  Doric  Comus  of  Milton,  and  they  lived  by  the  side  of  the 
prince  of  poets  and  the  prince  of  philosophers,  who  in  the  lan 
guage  of  Macaulay  made  their  age  a  more  glorious  and  impor 
tant  era  in  the  history  of  the  human  mind  than  the  age  of  Per 
icles  or  Augustus.  It  is  their  association  with  living  genius  and 
learning  which  is  to  us  in  this  day  a  lingering  inspiration,  for 
such  instruction  of  States  lengthens  out  through  the  genera 
tions.  It  is  something  of  value  to  us  that  the  founder  of  Rhode 
Island  kept  her  interest  warm  by  the  side  of  the  throne  through 
intimacy  with  the  learned  historian  and  premier  Clarendon; 
that  the  Carolinas  are  imperishably  related  to  Shaftesbury,  the 
paragon  of  accomplished  ministers,  with  John  Locke,  the  philos 
opher  so  quaint,  original,  and  great,  whose  framework  of  govern 
ment  did  not  endure  but  whose  benevolence  survived  to  welcome 
the  Huguenots  of  France;  that  the  Covenanters  of  New  Jer 
sey  were  saturated  with  the  spirit  of  Milton  while  living,  as 
they  had  been  educated  under  the  writings  of  George  Buchanan 
who  went  before  them;  that  over  the  wide  South,  first  named 
Virginia,  still  lingers  a  memory  that  kindles  to  enthusiasm  at 
the  mention  of  their  visitor,  the  incomparable,  the  thousand- 
souled  Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 

In  thus  speaking  of  the  early  masters  who  have  left  their 
image  in  our  history,  I  am  indulging  in  no  rhetorical  illusion. 
The  difficulty  in  our  apprehension  of  the  facts  lies  within  our 
natural  limitations.  Remoteness  of  time  casts  a  haze  over  our 
perception  of  the  continuity  and  duration  of  mental  influences 
in  forming  the  character  of  States.  If  we  could  place  ourselves 
in  palpable  connection  with  the  generations  which  have  passed, 
the  tram  of  public  educators  would  pass  before  us  in  life-like 
and  august  procession.  But  this  can  be  only  partially  attained 
by  grouping  in  speech  the  great  personages  of  history.  A  ven- 


134  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

erable  and  remarkable  Chief-Justice  of  New  England,  dead 
within  fifteen  years,  used  to  say  that  he  once  saw  a  man  whose 
father  had  seen  the  first  child  born  in  the  harbor  of  the  Pilgrims; 
thus  seeming  to  span  with  his  own  hand  more  than  two  cen 
turies  of  Massachusetts.  But  historical  analysis  and  elimina 
tion  furnish  to  the  thoughtful  student  a  sufficient  thread  for 
tracing  the  lines  of  descent  in  the  life  of  communities.  In  the 
year  1637,  about  the  time  when  a  governing  power  was  estab 
lished  in  the  place  where  we  are  now  assembled,  he  who  was 
afterward  the  author  of  Paradise  Lost,  made  a  journey  into 
Southern  Europe.  In  Paris  he  met  and  was  entertained  by 
Grotius,  who  first  wrote  for  freedom  of  commerce  against  mari 
time  restrictions;  while  he  remained  there  Descartes  put  to  press 
his  first  great  philosophical  treatise,  which  is  still  quoted  among 
the  causes  of  change  in  modern  thought;  in  Italy  he  turned  aside 
to  visit  the  injured  Galileo,  whose  persecution  was  a  feature  of 
the  ecclesiastical  tyranny  of  the  time;  and  in  the  album  of  an 
Italian  nobleman  at  Genoa  he  wrote  his  autograph  after  that 
of  Thomas  Wentworth,  the  brilliant  Earl  of  Strafford.  We  find, 
therefore,  in  this  group  of  contemporaries,  thus  accidentally 
brought  together,  five  first-rate  figures  that  were  directly  allied 
to  the  advancement  of  our  own  country.  Grotius,  that  "chief 
of  men,"  who  laid  the  foundation  of  international  intercourse 
in  the  principles  of  justice,  whose  doctrines  educated  the  colonies 
to  an  early  and  constant  resistance  of  the  navigation  acts  of 
Parliament  which  resulted  in  their  independence;  Descartes, 
the  revolutionist  philosopher,  who  enunciated  the  law  of  indi 
vidual  consciousness  and  intellectual  freedom,  which  at  once 
became  seminal  and  vital  in  every  provincial  organization  on 
this  side,  and  which  to-day  underlies  the  constitution  of  every 
American  commonwealth;  Galileo,  one  of  the  pioneers  and  one 
of  the  martyrs  of  the  revolt  of  science,  whose  misfortunes  under 
inquisitorial  absolutism  reached  the  ears  of  the  brotherhood  of 
reform  and  helped  raise  the  party  which  swept  with  human  rights 
over  England  and  the  new  world  in  the  West;  Lord  Strafford, 
who  returned  home  to  aid  our  cause  under  Charles,  by  his  be 
trayal  of  the  franchise  of  his  country  and  our  own,  and  after 
granting  no  lenity  to  our  friends  or  our  cause  at  length  stretched 
his  own  neck  upon  the  scaffold;  and  John  Milton,  who,  unlike 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  HISTORY         135 

his  fellow-countryman  and  fellow-traveller,  stood  fast  to  the 
challenge  of  his  conscience,  and  proclaimed  in  immortal  prose 
the  brave  thoughts  of  the  new  dispensation,  — 

"In  liberty's  defense,  a  noble  task, 
Of  which  all  Europe  rang  from  side  to  side,"  — 

which  have  moved  to  triumphant  deeds  eight  generations  upon 
this  continent.  It  acquaints  us  with  the  dignity  of  our  pupilage 
thus  to  draw  near  in  imagination  to  our  instructors  long  de 
parted;  it  brings  before  our  sight  that  splendid  age  from  which 
we  have  derived  our  power,  to  call  these  masters  around  us; 
we  are  with  them,  and  they  are  with  us,  when  we  see  the  blood 
of  the  first  Governor  of  Massachusetts  coursing  among  us  in 
the  person  of  a  most  accomplished  descendant,  and  the  blood  of 
another  flowing  for  a  testimony  to  mankind  under  the  heads 
man's  axe;  when  we  look  upon  the  regicide  judges  face  to  face, 
Goffe  and  Whalley  on  the  banks  of  our  Connecticut,  and  Dix- 
well  amid  his  studies  in  the  shade  of  New  Haven;  when  Ban 
croft  and  Macaulay  only  disagree  whether  Cromwell  and  Hamp- 
den  actually  took  passage  and  went  on  shipboard  for  Boston; 
when  we  know  that  our  own  Raleigh  was  a  member  of  the  same 
club  in  London  with  Ben  Jonson  and  Shakespeare;  when  every 
spirited  youth  of  Massachusetts  is  stirred  to  the  study  of  the 
martyred  Sidney  by  his  Latin  on  her  arms. 

Quite  possibly  we  do  not  often  enough  reflect  how  effectually 
the  spirit  of  one  man,  of  a  few  men,  may  decide  the  characteris 
tics  of  a  people,  the  destiny  of  a  State.  Under  the  military  sys 
tem  of  Europe  in  former  ages  it  was  within  the  power  of  a  single 
man  to  conquer  a  city  and  write  his  name  upon  its  walls,  to 
modify,  dismember,  reconstruct  a  kingdom,  and  affix  to  it  for  a 
longer  or  shorter  period  his  own  projected  will  and  law.  Napo 
leon  was  the  latest  and  the  greatest  of  this  order,  but  his  imperial 
creations  were  quickly  swept  back  to  their  original  relations  — 
for  though  the  sword  may  carve  the  pathway  to  a  throne,  it 
cannot  engrave  the  enduring  character  of  a  people.  But  the 
moral  agents  in  the  forming  of  communities  leave  more  lasting 
impressions,  which  are  beyond  the  power  of  accident  to  remove 
or  to  change.  All  the  laws  of  human  condition,  natural  genera 
tion,  veneration,  imitation,  faith,  tradition,  and  memory  com 
bine  to  perpetuate  the  mould  of  a  commonwealth  cast  by  a 


136  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

master  after  the  pattern  of  divine  virtue,  and  every  succeeding 
intellect  of  grasp  and  sway  may  add  to  its  symmetry  and  its 
strength.  Behold  at  our  door  the  power  of  a  man  abiding  through 
eight  generations!  Taught  to  shrink  from  the  forms  of  arbi 
trary  power  whilst  a  boy  lounging  about  the  doors  of  the  Star 
Chamber,  taught  law  from  the  living  lips  of  Coke,  tolerant 
charity  and  reforming  love  from  the  private  hours  of  Milton, 
many  languages  at  Oxford  where  the  classic  statue  of  liberty 
broke  in  Grecian  model  on  his  sight,  taught  experience  and 
trial,  sorrow  and  courage  in  Massachusetts,  Roger  Williams 
came  hither  from  fortunes  as  varied,  as  romantic  as  those  of  John 
Smith  or  Walter  Raleigh,  and  planted  the  first  purely  free  gov 
ernment  on  the  globe.  While  Descartes  was  writing  out  in  clear 
est  dialectics,  Williams  was  establishing  in  concrete  and  ever 
lasting  form  the  absolute  and  unqualified  freedom  of  conscience 
under  human  government.  I  do  not  know  why  I  should  not 
say,  since  it  is  true,  that  Massachusetts  in  her  march  of  progres 
sive  culture  took  two  centuries  almost  to  a  year  from  his  re 
moval  out  of  her  borders  to  strike  from  her  own  Constitution 
the  last  faded  badge  of  the  connection  of  the  church  and  the 
state.  The  charter  which  he  dictated  to  the  Crown,  alone  of 
the  original  thirteen  scarcely  changed  in  essentials,  still  endures 
for  his  visible  monument;  but  in  the  breadth  of  true  catholicity, 
in  the  belief  of  the  benevolence  of  human  nature,  in  the  cultiva 
tion  of  methods  of  peace  and  fraternity,  in  the  predominance 
of  a  religious  sect  never  at  variance  with  any  other,  which  have 
tided  the  life  of  his  gifts  and  graces  over  the  lapse  of  two  hundred 
and  forty  years,  the  memorial  of  his  invisible  glory  is  reflected 
through  all  habitations  and  all  hearts.  The  lessons  of  the 
teacher  caught  by  the  leaders  of  the  following  age  have  im 
parted  a  tinge  and  flavor  to  the  culture  of  the  State.  Perhaps 
in  imagination,  perhaps  in  the  discernment  of  reality,  I  seem 
to  myself  to  trace  the  extension  of  the  same  intellectual  freedom 
to  another,  who  in  the  next  century  impressed  his  benevolent 
genius  upon  the  souls  of  this  island  home.  Berkeley  gave  to  this 
people  the  four  midway  years  of  his  life  of  spiritual  amenity. 
Of  every  attainment,  grace,  and  accomplishment,  admired  by 
every  school  of  philosophy,  while  he  maintained  his  own,  be 
loved  by  Pope,  and  Swift,  and  Addison,  while  they  hated  each 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  HISTORY         137 

other,  beloved  by  all  in  that  galaxy  that  continued  the  light  of 
the  reign  of  Anne  over  that  of  two  Georges,  he  came  and  erected 
his  bower  of  study  among  the  cliffs  of  this  coast.  In  letters, 
and  in  the  walks  of  village  life,  he  was  to  his  generation  a  foun 
tain  of  instruction,  and  such  fountains  in  a  free  commonwealth 
never  dry.  And  in  the  century,  still  the  next,  another  and  kin 
dred  spirit,  native-born  of  the  island,  devoted  to  the  State  the 
latest  years  of  his  inspiring  lessons,  "the  love  of  wisdom  and 
the  wisdom  of  love,"  so  rich  in  the  field  of  general  literature, 
so  pleading  for  a  wider  scope  of  popular  education,  for  the  en 
franchisement  of  man,  for  the  world's  peace,  so  aglow  with  the 
sweet  influences  of  Christianity.  To  the  scholarly  and  devout 
resident  of  Newport  the  whole  scene,  of  cliff,  and  beach,  and 
the  breathing  sea,  takes  on  the  aspect  of  a  memorial  imperish 
able  to  Berkeley  and  to  Channing.  Felicitous  has  been  the  lot 
of  Rhode  Island  to  have  had  distributed  over  her  three  centuries 
three  intellectual  masters,  whose  administration  of  her  thought 
and  aspiration  was  never  colored  by  asceticism  or  gloom,  was 
always  stimulating,  always  serene,  always  encouraging,  in  full 
accord  with  the  divine  monosyllable  that  glistens  from  her 
shield. 

The  term  of  active  European  emigration  to  this  land  covered 
rather  less  than  the  length  of  two  generations,  and  all  that  we 
are,  and  all  that  we  have,  may  in  a  large  degree  be  traced  back 
to  the  public  character  which  was  then  established.  The  roll 
of  those  who  came  contained  a  number  of  leading  minds  as  large 
proportionally  as  the  roll  of  those  who  remained  behind.  Some 
thing  that  was  chivalrous,  something  that  was  courtly,  still 
adhered  to  those  heads,  much  learning  of  the  kind  that  then 
prevailed,  of  studied  history  and  language,  perhaps  not  yet 
much  practised  statesmanship,  but  as  events  soon  showed,  a 
great  capacity  for  it.  Vane  and  Williams,  Endicott  and  Salton- 
stall,  Winthrop  the  senior  and  the  junior,  Hooker  and  Cotton, 
were  fair  types  of  the  leaders  on  both  sides,  most  of  them  Eng 
lish  university  men,  all  of  them  such  as  led  England  on  to  the 
Revolution  of  1688  and  rescued  her  Constitution.  I  allow  they 
became  especially  engrossed  in  the  high  mysteries  of  divinity, 
which  became  shaded  by  their  forest  abode,  and  took  in  the  va 
garies  of  a  larger  freedom  under  a  new  sky.  But  as  they  erected 


138  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

the  altars  of  the  church  and  the  state  upon  the  same  Zion 
and  within  the  same  temple,  the  same  subtlety  which  guarded 
the  one,  also  guarded  the  other;  the  same  enthusiasm,  if  you 
please,  the  same  fanaticism,  which  sustained  them  in  the  pur 
suit  of  abstruse  theology,  also  sustained  them  in  the  pursuit  of 
a  new  liberty;  the  same  extravagant  rejection  of  authority 
which  made  them  faithful  dogmatists  for  the  church,  made 
them  obstinate  partisans  for  the  state;  the  same  conscious  assur 
ance  that  made  them  polemics  in  religion,  made  them  republi 
cans  in  politics.  During  the  calm  and  study  of  the  residence 
of  their  sect  in  Switzerland,  by  the  "clear,  placid  Leman,"  in 
the  reflection  of  light  and  shadow  from  the  eternal  monarchs  of 
nature,  their  ideas  of  the  unseen  world  had  become  consolidated, 
their  ideas  of  the  social,  civil  framework  had  become  codified; 
they  would  have  no  sovereign  in  their  hearts  save  God,  no  sov 
ereign  in  their  laws  not  subordinated  to  their  interpretation  of 
Him;  as  the  phrase  goes,  they  would  have  a  church  without  a 
bishop,  a  state  without  a  king.  Those  were  great  ideas  for  that 
age,  and  they  could  only  be  enforced  by  great  and  original  minds, 
comprehensive  and  flexible  enough  for  the  founders  of  a  nation. 
Now,  if  you  follow  the  history  of  the  scene  on  which  these  views 
were  acted  out,  you  find  that  these  actors,  to  their  character 
as  theologians,  whatever  you  may  think  of  that,  soon  added  the 
acquired  character  of  astute,  wary  and  stubborn  statesmen. 
As  religionists  and  as  politicians  their  path  must  soon  divide; 
as  religionists  they  carried  everything  in  their  own  way  and  with 
a  high  hand,  with  none  to  obstruct  them;  as  politicians  the  shad 
ows  of  kingly  pretensions  advanced  gradually  over  the  sea,  en 
veloped  them  in  darkness  and  shut  them  in  to  their  wit's  end. 
They  were  obliged  to  supplement  religious  zeal  with  a  large 
worldly  wisdom,  and  all  the  way  from  about  1640  to  1689  you 
observe  in  the  directors  of  these  provinces  a  growing  genius  for 
affairs,  a  chary  taste  for  civil  policy,  a  certain  wise,  strong  sense 
of  diplomacy.  When  the  mailed  hand  of  royal  interference  ap 
proached,  so  long  as  they  were  too  feeble  to  resist,  they  were 
Fabian  in  their  policy,  and  warded  off  the  hour.  On  grave  occa 
sions  they  convened  their  synods  and  held  their  fasts,  but  these 
became  a  school  and  an  education;  the  pulpits  were  filled  by 
acute  teachers,  who  preached  altogether  on  the  right  side;  so  that, 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  HISTORY         139 

allowing  for  their  greater  share  of  prayer  and  praise,  they  had  in 
their  synods  and  their  fasts  all  that  we  should  have  now  in  our 
best  chosen  constitutional  conventions.  There  is  nothing  more 
interesting  in  all  the  life  of  these  progenitors  of  our  history  than 
their  studied  use  of  diplomacy  in  the  years  covering  the  fall  of 
the  first  Charles  and  the  rise  of  the  second,  with  Cromwell  inter 
vening  —  a  period  requiring  them  to  act  parts  so  delicate  and 
so  variant,  with  no  electric  cable  to  supply  them  in  the  evening 
with  the  policy  for  the  next  morning.  Great  results  hung  sus 
pended  on  the  action  of  the  ministers  who  assembled  in  their 
synods  in  Boston  —  for  there  was  not  a  newspaper  published 
in  America  till  the  eighteenth  century  —  and  they  rapidly  be 
came  masters  of  the  situation  more  by  their  reserved  power  in 
diplomacy  than  by  their  inspired  power  in  theology.  They  were 
preparing  their  generation  for  a  day  of  greater  power,  when  the 
bell  of  revolution  might  safely  strike  the  hour. 

That  beyond  question  was  the  educational  period  of  the  coun 
try,  as  youth  is  the  period  for  character  in  the  individual  life. 
It  was  her  education  under  the  champions  of  her  freedom,  fitted 
by  endowment  and  culture  to  carry  her  through  the  tremendous 
process  God  had  ordained.  Such  was  their  situation  and  their 
power.  A  kind  of  mediaeval  port  and  mien,  something  like  an 
intellectual  feudalism,  gave  to  them  the  walk  of  masters;  they 
admonished  others  against  the  authority  of  kings  and  nobles, 
but  they  did  not  relinquish  the  authority  due  to  themselves  as 
chosen  vessels  of  the  divine  purpose  for  the  coming  nation.  Un 
der  their  treatment  of  kings  and  parliaments  and  commissions, 
their  constituents  and  followers  inhaled  their  first  conception 
of  an  American  nationality.  Out  of  that  robust  and  austere 
school  came  the  broader  culture  and  sweeter  dispositions  of  later 
days.  Advanced  into  the  next  century,  those  stern  and  dark 
features  had  become  softened  by  another  education,  by  schools 
and  libraries  more  purely  American,  by  a  younger  class  of  schol 
ars  spread  over  the  country  from  the  university  at  Cambridge; 
but  we  ought  never  to  forget  that  the  schools,  the  libraries,  and 
the  university  were  estabh'shed  by  them.  Time  was  diffusing 
their  mind  like  the  waters  of  irrigation,  which,  as  they  receded 
from  the  shade  and  gloom  of  their  source,  took  the  warmth  of 
the  open  field  and  the  sparkle  of  the  cheerful  sun.  Mankind 


140  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

could  not  long  live  and  be  happy  under  the  frowns  of  a  puritani 
cal  theocracy.  At  once  the  school  of  the  church  and  the  state^ 
as  it  approached  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  exhib 
ited  the  manifestations  of  change;  the  work  had  been  laid  and 
transmitted  to  a  different  generation.  Society  had  passed  through 
the  transformation  which  in  Scotland  would  be  necessary  before 
she  could  welcome  Walter  Scott,  and  in  America  before  she 
could  trust  herself  in  the  arms  of  George  Washington.  From 
the  church  all  that  was  superstitious,  or  cruel,  or  whimsical 
in  the  day  of  Cotton  Mather  had  been  burned  away  in  the  expi 
atory  fires  through  which  bodies  politic  must  sometimes  pass, 
and  it  rose  with  a  fresh  glory  in  the  grandeur  of  Edwards,  the 
learning  of  Cooper,  and  the  heroism  of  Mayhew.  The  state, 
too,  now  shone  with  a  majesty  distinctively  its  own,  and  as 
cended  to  the  respect  of  Christendom  under  the  eloquence  of 
Otis,  the  learning  and  strength  of  John  Adams,  the  magnetic 
genius  of  Quincy  and  Warren,  the  wisdom  of  Franklin  and  the 
culture  of  Dickinson,  and  the  unconquerable  will  of  Samuel 
Adams.  But  all  that  larger  growth  and  attraction,  all  that  wider 
range  of  tastes  and  ambitions  expanding  grandly  toward  the 
high  things  of  knowledge,  were  the  long-wrought,  the  hard- 
taught  product  of  the  human  mind,  the  human  will,  under  the 
leadership  of  the  age  that  had  gone  to  its  rest. 

A  more  critical  urgency  for  action  had  now  arrived.  A  better 
combined  array  of  moral  forces  than  that  which  led  the  colonies 
in  the  last  years  of  their  dependence  and  the  first  of  their  union 
we  might  search  the  centuries  to  discover.  I  take  for  granted 
you  agree  with  me  that  the  more  cultivated  minds  take  the  lead 
in  civil  life.  There  is  a  theory  that  public  revolutions  proceed 
upward  from  the  body  of  the  people,  and  control,  enforce  the 
orders  of  intelligence  above.  I  do  not  so  read  our  own  or  any 
other  history.  At  all  times,  as  it  seems  to  me,  perhaps  more  ap 
preciably  to  our  observation  in  times  of  great  urgency  in  human 
affairs,  the  reasonings  and  generous  sentiments  of  great  intellects 
work  their  way  into  the  common  channels  of  the  general  mind, 
and  fill  the  office  of  its  directory;  and  the  attempt  to  make  our 
own  country  an  exception  to  the  rule  is  a  suggestion  of  flattery 
which  the  people  do  not  ask,  and  an  illusion  which  the  truth 
will  not  bear.  The  nature  of  men  has  not  changed  since  the  old 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  HISTORY         141 

essayist  declared  that  in  the  coalition  of  human  society  nothing 
is  more  pleasing  to  God,  or  more  agreeable  to  reason,  than  that 
the  highest  mind  should  exercise  the  chiefest  power.  If  it  were 
not  so,  education  could  not  advance  upon  individuals,  nor  en 
lightened  progress  upon  nations.  The  lower  strata  of  mind  draw 
the  electric  fires  of  the  higher  masters.  Heads  of  wisdom  are 
better  than  princes  to  a  state  passing  through  its  crises.  They 
supply  intellectual  aliment  to  its  thought,  they  impart  sympa 
thetic  activity  to  its  torpid  faculties. 

"Their  speech  betimes 
Inspires  the  general  heart;  its  beauty  steals 
Brightening  and  purifying  through  the  air 
Of  common  Life." 

And  there  is  another  part  of  this  law  governing  public  opin 
ion,  to  which  the  whole  race  is  subject;  I  mean  the  spontaneous, 
instinctive  acknowledgment  of  intellectual  authority,  the  law 
of  faith,  of  confidence  in  superior  intelligence.  We  are  all  of  us 
and  always  under  such  a  lead.  Mr.  Carlyle,  who  is  the  least  of  a 
literary  demagogue,  puts  this  truth  home  to  every  one  of  us 
after  his  own  abrupt  and  grotesque  manner:  "  Now  if  sheep  al 
ways,  how  much  more  must  men  always,  have  their  chiefs,  their 
guides.  Man,  as  if  by  miraculous  magic,  imparts  his  thoughts, 
his  mood  of  mind,  to  man.  Of  which  high,  mysterious  truth, 
this  disposition  to  imitate,  to  lead  and  to  be  led,  this  impossi 
bility  not  to  lead  (and  be  led)  is  the  most  constant  and  one  of 
the  simplest  manifestations."  And  the  globe  has  not  borne  an 
other  people  who  paid  greater  deference  to  such  guides  than  our 
own.  It  is  here  that  this  law  of  our  nature  has  freer  and  fuller 
play  than  in  the  countries  which  are  overshadowed  by  rank  and 
caste,  by  venerable  heraldry  and  names  artificial,  extending 
over  generations  their  charm.  While  a  single  family  and  its  aris- 
tocratical  connections  monopolized  the  administration  of  Eng 
land  during  a  generation,  Chatham  was  admitted  to  power  only 
because  the  Almighty  had  clothed  him  with  characteristics  which 
overawed  mankind,  and  Burke  never  held  any  first-rate  office  at 
all  under  Government  during  the  whole  of  his  magnificent  life. 
But  in  this  country,  rank  having  no  existence,  nothing  else  of 
conventional  kind  has  taken  its  place,  and  it  has  never  been  pos 
sible  for  wealth,  or  any  fiction,  or  any  pretension  to  withdraw 


142  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

for  a  length  of  time  the  body  of  its  citizenship  from  following  the 
directory  of  wisdom.  In  the  long  run  of  time  you  cannot  fail 
to  see  that  the  hero-worship  of  our  countrymen  takes  to  some 
uncommon  degree  of  lettered  fame,  some  rare  combination  of 
intellectual  powers,  some  form  or  manifestation  of  special  genius 
or  general  capacity.  Of  our  countrymen  travelling  by  thousands 
in  foreign  lands,  while  one  turns  aside  from  Brussels  to  visit 
the  scene  of  the  battle  of  kings  at  Waterloo,  ten  others  make 
the  longer  journey  from  London  to  Stratford  to  pay  the  tribute 
of  their  veneration  at  the  tomb  of  Shakespeare. 

I  return,  then,  to  my  topic,  that  in  the  dawn  of  this  national 
independency  there  was  at  work  upon  popular  opinion  a  wise, 
brilliant,  and  effective  array  of  heads  which  is  not  easily  paral 
leled.  The  colleges  were  in  tune  with  the  urgency,  and  the  pul 
pits  were  filled  by  a  ministry  of  patriotism  toned  by  a  cultivated 
wisdom.  The  field  of  civic  discussion  was  under  the  training 
of  a  class  of  men  in  some  of  the  colonies  who  would  have  adorned 
the  best  of  commonwealths  at  the  most  brilliant  of  its  periods; 
the  same  representative,  scholarly  statesmen  upon  whom  Chat 
ham  pronounced  the  remarkable  eulogium,  which  Franklin 
from  the  gallery  heard  him  deliver,  and  which  has  ever  since 
been  quoted  with  pride  on  these  shores.  For  a  classical,  refined 
public  speech,  coming  from  studied  men,  but  penetrating  the 
universal  heart,  it  was  a  golden  age.  It  lifted  upward  and  on 
ward  to  action  every  degree  of  mediocrity  below  it.  Fifty  names 
start  up  for  mention  which  cannot  be  surpassed  in  our  day.  In 
the  South  were  Rutledge,  Gadsden,  Peyton  Randolph,  Bland, 
the  two  Lees,  most  of  them  educated  in  both  countries,  ree'n- 
forced  by  Jefferson  and  his  peers,  who  breathed  into  the  public 
spirit  their  own  cultivated  chivalry;  in  the  centre  was  Dickinson, 
fresh  from  his  law  of  the  Temple  at  London,  finished  in  elegant 
literature,  whose  thoughts  passed  in  French  over  the  other  Con 
tinent,  to  whose  support  a  little  later  came  Franklin,  direct  from 
the  society  of  Burke  and  Pitt,  bringing  his  whole  nature  en 
riched  for  his  country;  in  New  England,  too  many  rather  than 
too  few;  of  whom  was  Hopkins,  who  knew  all  poetry  and  all 
history,  who,  John  Adams  said,  instructed  him  four  years  in 
committee-room  in  science  and  learning,  whose  old  age  to  all 
coming  in  contact  was  an  inspiration;  of  whom  were  the  chiefs 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  HISTORY        143 

of  Massachusetts,  whose  roll  rounds  with  the  names  of  the  two 
Adamses.  Samuel  Adams  was  something  besides  a  pious  and 
patriotic  Puritan;  his  humanity  was  exquisite  and  his  erudition 
was  genteel,  blending  grace  and  attraction  with  the  intensity  of 
his  appeal.  John  Adams  educated  the  colonies  to  an  intelligent 
comprehension  of  the  situation  which  was  necessary  to  go  before 
action,  and  in  this  work  he  more  completely  than  any  other  man 
of  this  nation  illustrated  the  proverb  that  knowledge  is  power; 
his  research  was  boundless  and  his  talent  was  of  every  kind;  he 
made  history  and  the  Scriptures,  the  classic,  ancient  ages,  the 
principles  of  law  and  speculative  philosophy  familiar  to  the  com 
mon  understanding,  while  he  rallied  the  learned  professions  and 
the  schools  of  the  land  to  the  mighty  work  in  hand.  There  were 
by  that  time  as  able  lawyers  here  as  the  lawyers  of  the  Crown, 
and  he  was  at  their  head.  Scarcely  ever  before  had  the  spirit  of 
a  passing  time  called  into  such  intensity  of  use  every  grace, 
every  accomplishment  and  attribute  of  the  upper  sphere  of  the 
human  mind,  and  never  before  had  any  people  so  confidingly 
trusted  to  it  their  hope  and  destiny.  They  would  follow  only 
the  wisest  and  best;  in  their  vast  undertaking  they  would  em 
ploy  no  mediocrity;  Georgia,  Pennsylvania,  and  Massachusetts 
would  have  no  less  an  agent  in  London  than  Benjamin  Frank 
lin;  New  York  with  its  salary  of  a  thousand  dollars  would  have 
no  other  than  Edmund  Burke.  They  believed  that  "a  great  em 
pire  and  little  minds  go  ill  together."  To  which  roll  in  the  hour 
of  its  need  was  added  yet  another  —  the  man  of  little  less  than 
divine  virtue,  the  Father  of  his  Country,  the  leader  of  her  armies, 
the  most  glorious  of  her  citizens,  the  founder  and  protector  of 
her  liberty,  he  who  despised  the  name  of  king,  yet  himself  was 
more  majestic,  whom  God  manifestly  favored,  that  he  was  in  all 
things  his  helper  —  the  unapproached  and  unapproachable 
Washington. 

Nor  alone  were  their  chiefs  upon  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  This 
national  fabric  was  shaped,  in  part,  by  most  expert  hands  of 
Englishmen.  In  the  prolonged  debates  of  many  years  there  was 
a  Parliamentary  minority  of  the  choicest  and  greatest  of  the 
realm,  who  spoke  for  justice  under  the  influence  of  the  proudest 
day  of  the  British  forum.  By  general  consent  the  most  flourish 
ing  period  of  English  eloquence  extends  for  about  half  a  century 


144  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

from  the  maturity  of  Lord  Chatham's  genius  to  the  death  of  Fox, 
and  a  good  part  of  its  most  brilliant  exhibitions  was  during  the 
ten  years  which  covered  the  American  questions.  Between  the 
opening  and  the  close  of  those  questions  passed  across  the  stage 
Grenville,  Barre,  North,  Camden,  Mansfield,  Charles  Towns- 
hend,  Fox,  Burke,  and  the  heaven-born  orator,  the  elder  Pitt  — 
enough  for  a  nation's  history  and  a  nation's  glory.  The  Parlia 
mentary  literature  of  that  school  can  meet  the  philosophical 
criticisms  of  Burke  himself;  it  can  stand  the  test  of  time  and  the 
admiration  of  ages,  because  it  was  founded  in  good  reason  and 
just  sentiment.  It  was  listened  to  in  the  speaking  by  some  of  our 
leaders  from  home  sitting  in  the  gallery,  among  whom  were 
Quincy  and  Franklin;  it  came  to  these  shores  in  fast-sailing 
packets,  was  spread  from  the  ice-fields  to  the  palmettoes  by  the 
wide-winged  press,  was  repeated  from  mouth  to  mouth,  floated 
in  the  air.  It  was  not  all  upon  our  side  of  the  questions,  but  it 
passed  here  under  the  hands  of  masters,  was  sifted  of  sophism 
and  error,  was  sent  forth,  stirring  grand  sentiments  of  duty,  and 
circulated,  all  inspiring,  over  the  New  World. 

Nor  again  to  the  schools  of  American  and  English  authorities 
alone  were  our  fathers  of  that  day  shut  in  for  their  tuition.  From 
another  continent,  another  tongue,  and  another  religion  they 
heard  voices  of  lesson  and  sympathy.  We  are  forever  indebted 
to  France  for  an  early  and  a  late  infusion  of  lofty  sentiment 
which  has  pervaded  our  public  life.  In  the  story  of  religious  and 
romantic  adventure  displayed  in  exploring  and  settling  this 
country  the  French  enthusiasts  stand  out  with  radiant  linea 
ments  upon  the  historical  canvas.  Advancing  always  within  the 
orders  of  the  Catholic  church,  penetrating  through  primeval 
forests  to  the  Far  West,  enduring  every  hardship  and  privation  of 
pioneers,  leaving  their  pathway  in  the  wilderness  everywhere 
blazed  by  the  lily  and  the  cross,  ministering  in  their  faith  amid 
the  vortex  of  savage  tribes  which  whirled  like  angels  of  darkness 
around  them,  one  after  another  yielding  up  their  life  in  solitary 
martyrdom,  in  the  extremest  hour  chanting  in  the  Latin  of  the 
schools  of  France  hymns  which  even  then  were  a  thousand  years 
old,  they  have  left  in  every  French  town  of  North  America,  in 
our  written  annals  and  unwritten  traditions,  the  traces  of  their 
spiritual  and  intellectual  heroism.  Expelled  at  length  as  a  polit- 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN   HISTORY        145 

ical  power  from  this  country  by  Great  Britain,  the  Nemesis  of 
history  took  in  hand  their  vindication.  While  the  gallant  Wolfe, 
by  a  magical  stroke,  won  to  the  British  Crown  every  French 
possession  east  of  the  Mississippi,  there  were  those  at  work  in 
the  silence  of  studies  about  the  gay  capital  of  France,  engineer 
ing  an  intellectual  revolution  which,  within  twenty  years,  would 
sweep  from  these  States  the  last  vestige  of  British  dominion. 
About  the  year  1763,  when  every  thing  here  was  ceded  to  the 
Crown  of  England,  the  spirit  of  a  new  philosophy  was  spread 
ing  over  France  and  radiating  upon  Great  Britain  and  America. 
To  those  who  were  especially  engrossed  in  the  study  it  presented 
itself,  perhaps  under  no  deep  sense  of  responsibility,  as  the  fresh 
luxury  of  newly  enfranchised  minds,  but  to  the  world  it  bore  the 
fruits  of  political  revolution.  The  satire  of  Voltaire,  aimed  at  the 
church  which  needed  it  much,  fell  with  effectual  blow  upon  the 
state  which  needed  it  more.  The  ethereal  and  radical  eloquence 
of  Rousseau  circulated  as  an  atmosphere;  the  young  men  crowded 
the  benches  and  the  salons  of  the  new  school  in  all  the  larger 
cities  of  the  kingdom;  and  at  one  time,  just  before  the  declara 
tion  of  our  independence,  more  than  half  a  dozen  of  bold  teachers 
of  speculation,  wit,  levity,  reason,  and  philosophy  were  seated 
around  the  throne  as  its  premier  and  its  advisers.  It  was  the 
preparatory  school  for  modern  revolution.  It  was  classical  in  its 
study  of  the  ancient  histories.  It  soon  found  its  theory  and 
passion  impersonated  in  the  youthful  Lafayette,  whose  early 
readings  had  imaged  in  his  reflection  and  love  the  models  of  lost 
republics,  and  quickly  afterward  it  found  the  seal  of  its  assurance 
in  the  treaty  of  alliance  with  the  United  States.  The  authorities 
of  that  keen,  speculative,  daring  philosophy  gave  the  touch  of 
fate  to  American  independence.  And  in  the  memorable  recep 
tion  of  Benjamin  Franklin  at  Versailles,  when  that  brilliant 
court,  destined  so  soon  to  pass  away,  was  captivated  by  the 
decorous  simplicity  which  the  great  American  knew  quite  well 
when  and  how  to  wear,  we  behold  the  last  ceremony  in  which  old 
institutions  and  old  prescriptions,  represented  by  kings  and 
nobles,  bowed  unawares  before  the  divinity  of  a  new  liberty  and 
a  new  world  —  the  ceremony  in  which  that  new  liberty  and  new 
world,  in  its  plain,  untitled  representative,  returned  the  salute 
to  the  masters  behind  the  throne  who  were  moving  the  world  to 


146  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

revolution.  I  have  never  wondered  that  Jefferson,  who  after  our 
peace  passed  four  grateful  years  at  Paris,  intimate  and  favorite 
with  its  eminent  philosophers,  caught  "the  habit  and  the  power 
of  dalliance  with  those  large,  fair  ideas  of  freedom  so  dear,  so 
irresistible"  to  the  French  people.  Almost  a  century  has  since 
passed,  and  his  name  is  even  now  treasured  in  the  hearts  of  the 
French  leaders  of  opinion  as  that  of  a  master  and  instructor  — 
an  impressive  illustration  of  the  ceaseless  international  exchange 
of  thought.  Three  years  ago  Charles  Sumner  came  to  my  apart 
ment  in  Paris  directly  from  an  interview  with  the  leader  of  the 
more  advanced  Republicans,  now  recognized  as  their  leader 
probably  by  a  larger  number  of  men  than  any  other  living 
civilian  in  any  country,  the  bold  and  eloquent  Gambetta.  He 
related  to  me  the  details  of  the  conversation.  Gambetta  said: 
"What  France  most  needs  at  the  present  time  is  a  Jefferson." 
I  will  not  keep  back  the  reply  of  the  great  Senator:  "You  want 
first  a  Washington,  and  your  Jefferson  will  come  afterwards.'* 

My  limitations  compel  me  to  allusions  only  on  the  field  of  our 
history.  We  usually  observe  that  the  times  requiring  the  larg 
est  exercise  of  the  intellectual  forces,  and  so  bringing  into  activity 
the  supremest  men,  have  been  periods  of  civil,  not  of  military 
events,  those  preceding  or  following  the  trial  of  war.  Succeed 
ing  to  the  Revolution  came  the  exigent  time  for  organizing  under 
permanent  forms  —  the  constitutional  epoch.  That  term  of 
seven  years  was  the  test  to  virtue,  to  the  capacity  for  outlook 
and  statesmanly  projection,  without  the  aid  of  any  light  re 
flected  from  older  nations  upon  the  questions  to  be  adjusted 
here.  If  you  reflect  how  divided  this  people  were  after  the  at 
tainment  of  independence;  that  all  local  traditions,  prejudices, 
and  attachments  which  had  been  buried  in  the  war,  then  re 
turned  with  a  risen  life  and  vigor;  that  diversities  of  origin, 
blood,  and  temperament  resumed  their  individual  forces;  that 
idiocrasies  of  religion  became  sympathetic  with  localities;  that 
the  vast  bulwarks  of  the  natural  configuration  of  the  continent 
frowned  in  the  way  of  our  unity,  —  you  only  recall  in  part  the 
division  and  distress  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  under  the 
confederation.  It  soon  grew  to  a  public  opinion  which  alter 
nated  between  national  hope  and  national  despair.  The  Con 
vention  which  assembled  in  1787  to  organize  the  fragmentary 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  HISTORY        147 

elements  which  now  constitute  the  most  intense  nation  in  ex 
istence,  over  which  Washington  presided,  was  in  a  capacious 
civic  wisdom  superior  to  any  other  of  modern  record  —  superior, 
in  my  judgment,  to  that  which  had  met  in  the  same  hall  twelve 
years  before,  upon  which  Pitt  had  lavished  his  rhetoric  of  praise. 
Washington  carried  there  a  carefully  prepared  synopsis  of  the 
ancient  examples,  but  amid  the  great  questions  and  great  de 
baters  that  surrounded  him  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever 
unrolled  his  manuscript.  In  the  lead  of  the  discussions,  South 
Carolina,  Virginia,  Pennsylvania,  and  New  York  figured  with 
unchallenged  supremacy.  And  when,  afterward,  the  work  of  that 
body  was  submitted  for  the  consent  of  the  several  states,  the 
debate  in  popular  meeting  and  in  state  conventions  summoned 
to  the  front  every  giant  mind.  The  scales  were  turned  at  last  by 
the  pure  argumentation  of  two  men.  I  have  sometimes  asked 
myself  whether,  under  similar  surroundings  in  our  own  day, 
beset  with  the  same  excitement  and  irritation,  the  present  gen 
eration  would  in  the  same  degree  as  that  submit  its  judgment  to 
the  sway  of  a  series  of  papers  so  calm,  passionless,  and  dialectical 
as  those  which,  under  the  name  of  The  Federalist,  Madison  and 
Hamilton,  but  chiefly  the  latter,  addressed  to  their  country. 
With  equal,  with  great  effect,  Madison  in  the  Convention  of 
Virginia,  Hamilton  in  that  of  New  York,  made  their  great  en 
dowments  tributary  to  the  solemn  decision.  Madison  was  born 
symmetrical  for  the  highest  dignities  of  the  statesman,  and  cul 
ture  completed  the  work;  sound  learning  was  added  to  a  sound 
judgment,  and  his  mind  was  illuminated  for  perspicacity  and  for 
perspective.  He,  and  he  alone,  saved  the  Government  in  Vir 
ginia,  where,  though  young  in  years,  he  was  already  a  popular 
idol.  The  issue  hung  suspended  upon  New  York,  the  last,  the 
eleventh  state  which  was  necessary  to  make  plenary  the  con 
sent  and  ratification,  where  it  was  carried  after  immense  exer 
tions.  All  contemporary  accounts  and  traditions  still  existing 
carry  to  the  credit  of  Hamilton  that  imperial  result.  He  was 
then  thirty-one  years  of  age,  in  the  bloom  of  his  faculties,  the 
finest  genius  known  to  American  public  life.  His  ingenuous  na 
ture  and  exquisite  sensibility,  from  a  Huguenot  descent,  the 
unshackled  outline  and  clear  order  of  his  thought  warmed  to 
color  by  the  fervor  of  a  tropical  birth,  the  flexibility,  simplicity, 


148  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

and  delicious  amenity  of  his  style,  as  pure  as  Addison's,  his  far- 
distant  search  and  reach,  his  climacteric  ascending  in  argument, 
his  judgment,  which  Washington  said  was  "intuitively  great," 
displayed  him  in  his  public  efforts  as  one  of  nature's  thinkers, 
orators,  jurists,  and  statesmen.  For  an  entire  generation,  not 
ending  at  his  death,  he  was  to  one-half  of  his  countrymen  the 
interpreter  of  his  era.  He  was  a  leader  who  never  flattered  his 
followers.  To  him,  by  consent  of  all,  the  civic  chaplet  falls  for 
the  decision  which  gave  this  Government  to  the  North  American 
Republic.  In  the  wandering  of  a  boy  from  college,  straying 
many  years  ago  among  the  tombstones  which  mark  the  ancient 
worthies  of  New  Jersey,  in  the  churchyard  at  Princeton,  I  stood 
by  the  side  of  a  newly  made  grave,  which  bore  as  yet  no  trace  of 
designation  at  its  head.  But  I  could  not  be  ignorant  as  to  its 
tenant  after  reading  the  inscription  over  the  adjoining  spot  of 
earth  consecrated  to  the  sleeping  dust  of  his  kinsman,  his  an 
cestor,  the  glorified  Edwards.  It  was  the  grave  of  Aaron  Burr. 
"At  the  mention  of  that  name  the  spirit  of  Hamilton  starts  up 
to  rebuke  the  intrusion  —  to  drive  back  the  foul  apparition  to 
its  gloomy  abode,  and  to  concentrate  all  generous  feeling  on 
itself." 

I  can  illustrate  my  subject  only  by  a  brief  allusion  to  our  next 
and  longer  historical  stage  which  followed  under  the  Constitu 
tion.  It  was  the  era  of  development,  bringing  to  the  direction 
of  the  public  life  of  this  country  all  that  splendid  succession 
which  opened  with  Marshall  and  Hamilton,  Jefferson  and  Madi 
son,  and  closed  with  the  death  of  Clay  and  Calhoun,  John 
Quincy  Adams,  Webster  and  Everett  —  an  array  not  surpassed 
in  recent  time  by  the  chiefs  of  English  administration.  It  is 
familiar  to  many  now  living  how  trustingly  the  people  hung 
upon  their  lips  and  took  their  direction  in  all  the  policies  of 
growth  and  expansion.  But  it  was  a  stage  of  greater  signification 
than  mere  development;  it  was  our  historical  period  of  inter 
pretation.  As  you  know,  at  the  close  of  Washington's  active 
day  all  the  questions  and  possibilities  of  questions  touching  the 
interpretation  of  the  Constitution,  which  had  been  hushed  in 
his  sacred  presence,  flew  into  ceaseless  activity,  and  with  only 
an  occasional  interval  continued  to  excite  the  general  mind 
down  to  1860,  when  the  sword  became  the  arbiter.  During  that 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  HISTORY        149 

protracted  discussion  and  discordancy  the  treatment  of  the  sub 
ject  assumed  the  highest  forms  of  philosophical  argument,  and 
called  into  use  the  blended  acuteness  and  breadth  of  jurists  and 
statesmen.  The  existence  of  the  government  would  be  deter 
mined  by  the  settlement  of  that  question  of  interpretation,  so 
complex,  so  profound,  in  many  respects  so  metaphysical  in  its 
kind,  that  the  people  by  whom  it  must  be  settled  were  largely 
compelled  to  accept  upon  faith  the  opinions  of  their  champions; 
the  grander  the  leadership,  the  more  trustful  the  following.  It 
narrowed  down  at  length  to  but  two  men,  of  whom  it  may  be 
said  that  one  of  them  argued  the  country  into  the  greatest  of 
modern  wars,  and  that  the  other  prepared  it  for  a  successful 
deliverance.  Since  the  death  of  Washington,  Jefferson,  and 
Hamilton  no  two  men  have  held  the  intellectual  trust  of  such 
large  numbers  and  over  so  many  years  as  Calhoun  and  Webster 
pending  the  questions  of  constitutional  interpretation.  Calhoun 
was  the  master  of  his  school.  Exemplar  of  high,  attracting  per 
sonal  qualities,  eloquent  with  a  logic  which  was  made  fervid  by 
intensity  of  conviction,  reasoning  unerring  from  his  elements 
and  rejecting  every  expedient  or  phenomenal  modification, 
bringing  to  questions  of  construction  the  cold  and  unrelenting 
methods  of  science  regardless  of  the  assistant  or  opposing  forces 
of  practical  reasons,  he  towered  above  his  associates  in  belief 
and  was  followed  by  the  undiscriminating  ranks  that  sometimes 
understood  and  always  trusted  him.  I  do  not  believe  we  should 
have  had  the  late  war  if  he  had  lived,  but  his  death  left  his  school 
to  drift  into  it  upon  the  teachings  of  his  lifetime.  The  vindica 
tion  of  the  government  by  the  sword  in  last  resort  must  be 
traced  as  the  logical  result  of  the  opposite  school,  over  which 
his  great  rival  presided.  I  do  not  overlook  that  Webster  had 
profound  and  luminous  associates  in  his  high  argument  of 
twenty  years  for  the  true  doctrine  of  the  government,  yet  he  was 
the  acknowledged  leader,  the  accepted  champion  and  defender 
of  the  Constitution.  And  now  that  the  Rebellion  is  by  both  sides 
conceded  a  failure,  now  that  the  principles  which  he  maintained 
are  by  both  sides  admitted  as  a  finality  by  trial  of  war,  it  is  be 
coming  to  our  intelligence  and  magnanimity  to  recognize  the 
champion  of  the  faith  which  carried  us  through.  For  nothing  is 
more  certain  than  that  before  the  shedding  of  blood  it  was  under 


150  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  BULLOCK 

his  elucidation  that  the  consolidation  of  the  Union  had  become 
so  assured  in  the  convictions  and  affections  of  the  people  as  to 
have  prepared  them  for  the  conflict.  To  him  above  others  we 
owe  that  sentiment  of  nationalism  prevailing  over  statism, 
which  became  compacted  and  unified  with  the  very  fibre  of  the 
American  people,  and  without  which  the  Union  would  have 
parted  at  the  touch  of  arms.  He  first  made  familiar  to  modern 
ears  the  principles  upon  which  alone  the  government  could  live, 
and  his  pupils,  his  followers,  were  attached  to  the  majority  which 
upheld  it  to  the  last.  It  is  time  that  all  fair  minds  should  turn 
from  the  cloud  which  shaded  his  closing  days,  to  a  full  percep 
tion  of  his  instructions  which  now  shine  with  advancing  splendor 
in  the  Constitution  he  defended.  And  in  their  enjoyment  of  the 
fresh,  the  final  triumph  of  their  government,  which  his  active 
genius  made  doubly  sure,  if  a  just  and  grateful  people  shall 
divide  its  honors  between  the  leaders  of  its  thought  and  the 
leaders  of  its  armies,  as  England  divided  her  honors  between 
Pitt  and  Wellington,  then  henceforth  words  of  reproach  scat 
tered  by  careless  tongue  over  the  grave  of  Webster  will  no  longer 
be  accepted  as  the  language  of  duty  or  justice,  but  will  be  treated 
with  only  that  degree  of  respect  which  belongs  to  ingratitude,  to 
flippancy,  and  to  folly. 

But  it  is  time  to  draw  these  reflections  to  a  close.  I  must  not 
even  glance  at  the  later  —  perhaps  loftier  —  part  of  our  history, 
fresh  in  all  our  hearts  as  to  its  causes  and  its  results,  its  immortal 
deeds  and  immortal  actors.  Let  it  all  pass  for  another  occasion. 
A  duty  remains  for  each  generation  of  intelligent,  educated 
citizens.  The  day  of  intellectual  guidance  never  goes  by.  All 
these  agencies  and  methods  of  a  more  diffused  intellectual  life, 
all  these  potent  influences  of  a  more  distributed  education  over 
more  numerous  gradations  of  intelligence  only  render  essential 
a  higher  standard  for  the  higher  masters.  The  advanced  semi 
naries  will  still  continue  the  advanced  guard  of  a  well-sustained 
nationality  and  liberty.  Although  the  wants  of  the  age  have 
spurred  into  activity  the  wonderful  divisions  and  sub-divisions 
of  sciences  and  arts,  and  although  the  colleges  must  measurably 
pass  under  the  change,  yet  so  long  as  the  springs  of  the  human 
soul  remain,  a  broad  and  liberal  culture,  all  the  generous  senti 
ments  which  sciences  can  neither  generate  nor  suppress,  the 


INTELLECTUAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  HISTORY        151 

inspiring  study  of  old  language  and  old  history,  the  freedom  of 
general  learning,  the  encreasing  catholicity  of  modern  ethics 
will  still  plead  at  the  door  of  every  college  in  the  land  for  that 
sustenance  upon  which  so  many  past  leaders  have  thriven  to 
usefulness  and  power.  There  are  still  juices  in  the  old-time  study 
for  the  best  manhood  of  a  nation.  The  colleges  would  be  the  last, 
the  forlorn  hope  of  a  decaying  people.  It  is  our  reasonable  ex 
pectation  that  this  Union  will  last  through  the  ages,  but  if  in 
the  Providence  of  God,  which  stretches  beyond  our  sight,  its 
unity  and  glory  shall  ever  pass  away,  let  the  last  signal  which 
shall  be  heard  in  its  praise  and  defence  come  from  the  chiming 
bells  of  its  universities. 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  HIGHER  EDUCATION  TO 
NATIONAL  PROSPERITY 

BY  CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Vermont,  at  the  University  of  Vermont, 
June  27,  1876. 

I  PURPOSE  to  speak  to  you  to-day  on  the  Relations  of  Higher 
Education  to  National  Prosperity.  I  deem  this  subject  appro 
priate  to  the  season  and  the  occasion,  inasmuch  as  at  the  present 
time,  as  perhaps  never  before,  thoughtful  men  and  women  are 
reviewing  the  history  of  our  nation,  and  scrutinizing  with  some 
what  more  than  usual  care  the  foundations  on  which  our  govern 
mental  structure  has  been  reared.  It  is  fitting,  moreover,  that 
on  such  an  anniversary  as  this  we  should  look  to  the  future  as 
well  as  to  the  past.  It  is  as  true  as  it  is  commonplace  to  say  that 
in  a  few  years  the  country  with  all  its  precious  interests  will  be 
in  the  hands  of  those  who  are  now  leaving  the  schools.  There  is 
constantly  going  on  a  silent  revolution  which  is  taking  the  polit 
ical  power  out  of  the  hands  of  those  who  held  it  yesterday,  and 
placing  it  in  the  hands  of  those  who  are  to  wield  it  to-morrow. 
In  scarcely  more  than  a  score  of  years,  all  those  who  are  now  in 
active  life  will  have  been  gently  crowded  from  the  scene  and  a 
new  generation  will  have  taken  their  places.  This  mighty  change, 
ever  going  on,  like  one  of  the  great  processes  of  nature,  "silently, 
effectually,  inevitably,"  is  rolling  the  accumulated  weight  of  all 
the  knowledge  and  civilization  of  the  world  upon  the  rising  gen 
eration,  asking  it  to  carry  it  on  a  little  way,  and  then  to  hand  it 
over  to  its  successors.  It  is  not  yet  half  a  generation  since  the 
outbreak  of  the  great  Civil  War,  and  yet  the  men  who  then  con 
trolled  public  opinion  are  passed  away.  Lincoln  and  Douglas, 
Seward  and  Stanton,  Breckenridge  and  Sumner,  Stevens  and 
Greeley,  are  all  gone.  He  whom  the  people  have  twice  placed 
gratefully  at  the  head  of  the  nation  was  then  struggling  for  a 
precarious  existence  in  a  Western  city,  and  the  best  of  the  pres 
ent  governors  in  the  South  was  then  a  student  in  college.  The 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY    153 

honored  and  the  powerful  of  to-day  were  then  the  obscure  and 
the  unknown. 

But  interesting  as  this  silent  revolution  is  of  itself,  its  real 
importance  springs  from  another  cause.  It  comes  rather  from 
the  momentous  fact  that,  while  we  inherit  the  political  duties 
and  responsibilities  of  our  fathers,  we  cannot  inherit  their  skill 
and  their  knowledge.  It  is  doubtless  a  benign,  as  it  certainly  is 
an  impressive,  provision  of  divine  economy,  that  learning  and 
skill  cannot  be  transmitted  from  father  to  son.  We  may  inherit 
intellectual  appetites,  but  not  intellectual  possessions.  All  the 
knowledge,  the  art,  the  refinement  in  existence,  must  either  be 
acquired  by  those  who  are  assuming  the  active  duties  of  life, 
or  must  perish  with  those  who  are  putting  off  those  duties,  and 
be  lost  forever. 

It  is  for  these  reasons  that  in  every  civilized  community  the 
cause  of  education  is  a  subject  of  momentous  importance.  It  is 
for  these  reasons  that  it  is  impossible  to  preserve  —  not  to  say 
to  augment  —  the  general  stock  of  intelligence  without  large 
and  increasing  expenditures  for  the  education  of  the  young.  It 
is  for  these  reasons  that,  the  moment  the  zeal  of  the  public  in 
this  direction  begins  to  flag,  the  average  intelligence  of  the  com 
munity  begins  to  decline. 

In  our  own  country  the  cause  of  elementary  education  has 
flourished  as  almost  nowhere  else  hi  the  world.  Combined  in 
fluences  have  contributed  to  this  result.  The  cause  has  had 
many  and  eloquent  advocates.  Horace  Mann,  devoting  the 
rare  powers  of  his  mind,  the  indomitable  energy  of  his  character, 
and  the  best  years  of  his  life  to  his  favorite  work;  Edward 
Everett,  pleading  eloquently  "the  Importance  of  Education  in 
a  Republic,"  are  but  representatives  of  a  great  host  of  distin 
guished  men  who  are  entitled  to  the  gratitude  of  the  nation. 
And  the  nation  honors  them.  Till  the  Republic  is  forgotten,  they 
will  be  revered  as  among  its  greatest  benefactors. 

Then  in  accord  with  this  advocacy,  has  been  the  influence  of 
our  material  prosperity.  Every  intelligent  lad  sees  something 
of  the  glittering  prizes  that  are  offered  to  industrious  effort. 
Fortunes  rapidly  accumulated  have  displayed,  in  our  own  coun 
try  as  nowhere  else,  their  alluring  and  often  irresistible  charms. 
The-  professions,  seemingly  overcrowded,  and  yet  never  full, 


154  CHARLES   KENDALL  ADAMS 

keep  up  an  importunate  voice  of  appeal  alike  to  the  ambitious 
and  the  indolent. 

Now  the  result  of  these  apparently  diverse  influences  upon 
society  has  been  precisely  what  a  priori  might  have  been  anti 
cipated.  The  voice  of  our  educators  has  been  simply  reinforced 
by  the  voice  of  our  materialism  in  demanding  a  thorough  and 
comprehensive  system  of  common  school  education.  There  is 
not  a  boy,  there  is  not  a  laborer  with  a  spark  of  parental  desire 
for  the  prosperity  of  his  child,  who  does  not  see  that  at  least  a 
common  school  education  is  the  first  condition  of  an  ability  to 
profit  by  the  opportunities  of  life. 

But  as  soon  as  we  pass  beyond  the  domain  of  instruction 
purely  elementary,  we  find  that  these  two  forces  no  longer  act  in 
harmony.  The  calls  of  ambition  are  now,  not  toward  the  schools, 
but  toward  the  forum  and  the  market;  and  consequently, 
whether  these  voices  are  simply  discordant,  or  whether  the  voice 
of  the  educators  is  drowned  and  silenced  amid  the  hoarse  jargon 
of  affairs,  the  result  is  the  same,  —  that  while  our  common 
schools  flourish  and  are  the  just  pride  of  our  country,  our  higher 
institutions  of  learning  have  been  left,  for  the  most  part,  either 
to  perish,  or  to  subsist  upon  the  precarious  favors  of  private 
benevolence. 

I  am  not  so  unjust  as  to  attribute  what  seems  to  me  to  have 
been  the  languishing  condition  of  American  colleges  during  the 
past  twenty-five  years  exclusively  to  the  cause  which  I  have 
assigned.  There  is,  as  it  seems  to  me,  another  cause,  and  possi 
bly  one  that  is  still  more  important.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that  a 
more  or  less  radical  change  had  taken  place  in  public  opinion 
concerning  the  relations  of  higher  education  to  the  state  at 
large.  It  was  the  doctrine  of  the  Puritan  fathers  —  and  it  is  of 
great  importance  to  note  the  fact  —  a  doctrine  continued  for  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  through  all  the  dark  periods  of  our 
colonial  and  provincial  history,  that  the  encouragement  of 
higher  education  was  one  of  the  great  interests  of  the  state.  It 
was  no  doctrine  of  theirs,  that  the  colleges  were  not,  equally 
with  the  lower  schools,  entitled  to  the  fostering  care  of  the  com 
monwealth.  It  seems  never  to  have  entered  their  imaginations, 
that  university  education,  less  than  common  school  education, 
was  the  interest  of  the  entire  people.  Two  years  before  John 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY    155 

Harvard  gave  his  name  together  with  half  of  his  estate  and  the 
whole  of  his  library  to  the  college  at  Cambridge,  the  General 
Court  of  Massachusetts  had  voted  for  the  same  purpose  a  sum 
equal  to  "a  year's  rate  of  the  whole  colony."  President  Quincy, 
in  his  History  of  Harvard  University,  declares  that  during  the 
whole  of  the  first  seventy  years  of  its  existence,  "its  officers 
were  dependent  for  daily  bread  upon  the  bounty  of  the  General 
Court."  Eloquent  praises  have  been  bestowed,  and  doubtless 
justly  bestowed,  upon  the  noble  generosity  of  individual  colonists 
for  their  sacrifices  in  order  to  establish  "for  learning,  a  resting 
place,  and  for  science,  a  fixed  habitation  on  the  borders  of  the 
wilderness";  but  it  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  that  this  noble 
generosity  was  but  the  smallest  source  of  income  to  the  Univer 
sity.  It  was  to  the  more  substantial  gifts  of  the  Legislature,  that 
the  prosperity  of  the  college  was  chiefly  due.  Nor  did  this  de 
pendence  upon  the  General  Court  cease  with  the  colonial  days 
of  Massachusetts.  When  a  State  constitution  came  to  be 
adopted,  that  instrument  devoted  one  entire  chapter  to  the 
interests  of  the  only  college  under  its  jurisdiction.  "  It  shall  be 
the  duty,"  so  runs  the  constitution,  "  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  all 
legislatures  and  magistrates,  in  all  future  periods  of  this  com 
monwealth,  to  cherish  the  interests  of  literature  and  science, 
and  all  seminaries  of  them,  especially  the  University  at  Cam 
bridge,  public  schools  and  grammar  schools  in  the  towns."  Thus 
it  will  be  seen  that  Massachusetts  considered  the  University  as 
preeminently  a  part  of  her  school  system. 

The  history  of  Yale  is,  in  this  respect,  not  unlike  that  of  Har 
vard.  President  D wight,  in  his  sketch  of  the  college,  assures  us 
that  "the  beginning  of  this  seminary"  was  at  the  General 
Court,  held  at  Guilford  in  June  of  1652.  At  that  time  it  was 
decided  after  a  full  consideration  of  the  question,  that  New 
England  could  not  support  two  colleges,  and,  therefore,  in  order 
that  they  might  not,  by  founding  a  new  college,  embarrass  Har 
vard,  the  matter  was  indefinitely  postponed.  It  was  not  until 
fifty  years  later  that  the  college  was  actually  founded.  The 
same  high  authority  which  I  have  already  quoted  says,  "The 
principal  benefactor,  both  during  this  period  and  all  which  have 
succeeded,  was  the  Legislature."  In  illustration  of  the  method 
pursued  it  may  be  said  that  the  General  Court  in  its  first  charter 


156  CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS 

provided  for  an  annual  grant  to  the  college  —  a  grant  which 
was  continued  until  1755.  In  1750  Connecticut  Hall  was  reared 
from  money  chiefly  contributed  by  the  Legislature.  In  1792  the 
Legislature  granted  money  with  which  four  new  buildings  were 
erected,  a  handsome  addition  was  made  to  the  library,  "a  com 
plete  philosophical  and  chemical  apparatus  was  procured,"  and 
finally,  three  new  professorships  were  established.  Thus  down 
to  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  Yale,  no  less  than  Har 
vard,  was  chiefly  indebted  to  the  State  Legislature  for  the 
means  of  its  prosperity  and  its  advancement. 

Nor  was  this  method  of  supporting  the  higher  schools  of 
learning  confined  to  New  England.  The  College  of  William  and 
Mary,  in  the  order  of  its  establishment  second  only  to  Harvard, 
was  founded  by  an  endowment  from  the  royal  domain,  and  was 
supported,  for  the  most  part,  by  the  income  of  "  a  tax  of  a  penny 
a  pound  on  tobacco  exported  to  other  plantations."  In  Mary 
land,  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia,  the  same  provident  care  of 
the  colleges  by  the  State  was  inaugurated.  And  if  in  those 
states  the  cause  of  higher  education  was  less  prosperous  than  at 
the  North,  the  fact  was  largely,  if  not  chiefly,  due  to  the  earlier 
adoption  of  that  policy  of  the  multiplication  of  colleges  which  in 
the  present  century  has  spread  over  the  whole  country.  Mary 
land,  as  early  as  1723,  provided  for  high  schools  in  all  the  coun 
ties  of  the  State.  The  early  efforts  of  the  State  in  the  cause  of 
education,  as  President  Sparks  has  said,  were  "liberal,  honorable, 
and  worthy  of  the  highest  praise."  But  the  Legislature  made 
one  fatal  mistake.  Instead  of  concentrating  its  resources  on  a 
single  college  or  university,  it  divided  its  means,  and  raised  three 
of  its  high  schools  to  the  rank  of  colleges.  Jealousies  ensued.  In 
the  course  of  a  few  years,  it  came  to  be  seen  that  schools  which, 
as  academies,  had  been  admirable,  as  colleges,  were  insignificant. 
So  universal,  indeed,  became  the  dissatisfaction,  that  in  1805 
the  State  withdrew  its  aid  altogether;  and  thus,  notwithstanding 
the  munificent  efforts  of  the  State  in  its  early  history,  its  col 
leges  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  had  dwindled  into 
abject  feebleness. 

In  South  Carolina,  a  wiser  course  was  pursued,  and,  there 
fore,  the  cause  of  higher  education  escaped,  though  it  barely 
escaped,  the  fate  which  befell  it  in  Maryland.  Although  the 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY  -157 

State  committed  the  error  of  establishing  four  colleges  where 
but  a  single  one  could  be  supported,  the  nature  of  the  mistake 
came  to  be  seen  and  the  proper  remedy  was  applied.  In  1801  the 
Legislature  established  the  College  of  South  Carolina  on  so 
liberal  a  basis  that  the  other  colleges  at  once  descended  to  the 
rank  of  preparatory  schools.  Within  a  few  years  the  State  gave 
to  the  college  at  Columbia  some  $300,000,  an  amount  which  at 
the  beginning  of  this  century  was  truly  magnificent.  But  no 
State  ever  made  a  better  investment.  During  the  first  half  of 
the  present  century  the  scholastic  accomplishments  and  the 
political  ability  of  the  statesmen  of  South  Carolina  were  the 
just  pride  of  the  State,  as  they  would  have  been  of  any  State. 

Thus,  wherever  we  look,  whether  among  the  Puritans  of  New 
England,  the  Catholics  of  Maryland,  or  the  Episcopalians  of 
Virginia  and  South  Carolina,  we  everywhere,  down  to  the  begin 
ning  of  this  century,  behold  the  same  general  educational  con 
ditions,  the  same  general  habit  of  supporting  the  higher  schools 
as  well  as  the  lower  at  the  expense  of  the  State. 

It  is  moreover  interesting  to  note  that  it  was  hi  schools  thus 
endowed  and  thus  supported  that  the  master  minds  which 
framed  this  republic  were  developed.  If,  as  we  go  to  the  "  Mecca 
of  this  patriotic  year,"  we  see  reason  to  rejoice  in  a  national 
greatness  or  a  national  prosperity,  it  is  because  of  the  spirit  and 
the  wisdom  of  the  men  who  were  trained  in  schools  thus  estab 
lished  and  thus  endowed.  It  was  from  inspiration  gained  from 
such  sources  that  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  man  whom  Lord 
Brougham  pronounced  the  greatest  champion  of  the  political 
rights  and  interests  of  the  common  people  that  ever  lived,  could 
write  in  1800,  the  very  year  of  his  election  to  the  Presidency,  and 
at  the  age  of  fifty-five,  those  words  to  Dr.  Priestley,  which  can 
never  fail  to  be  a  delight  to  every  classical  scholar  who  reads 
them:  —  "I  enjoy  Homer  in  his  own  language  infinitely  better 
than  Pope's  translation  of  him.  I  thank  on  my  knees  Him  who 
directed  my  early  education,  for  having  put  into  my  possession 
this  rich  source  of  delight;  and  I  would  not  exchange  it  for  any 
thing  which  I  could  then  have  acquired,  and  have  not  since 
acquired." 

But  we  have  now  to  note  that  as  time  advanced,  new  ele 
ments  arose  to  complicate  the  educational  problem.  Local  de- 


158  CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS 

mands  and  local  jealousies  began  to  find  expression,  and  ere 
long  came  to  be  importunate,  if  not  indeed  imperious.  A  still 
more  potent  influence  was  the  fact  that  the  various  religious 
denominations,  as  they  came  to  be  spread  over  the  country,  felt 
the  need  of  educational  support.  They  understood  well  that 
whether  or  not  a  state  can  thrive  without  educated  statesmen, 
no  religious  denomination  can  push  its  way  in  the  nineteenth 
century  without  an  educated  clergy.  Accordingly,  in  the  course 
of  half  a  century,  colleges,  for  these  combined  reasons,  were 
planted  by  the  score  in  localities  where  no  more  than  a  single 
one  could  be  adequately  supported. 

Now  it  is  of  the  first  importance  to  note  the  immediate  effect 
of  this  policy,  which  was  nothing  less  than  to  paralyze  all  efforts 
to  secure  appropriations  for  higher  education  from  the  State 
Legislatures.  The  reasoning  which  led  to  this  paralysis  was  of 
the  simplest  nature  possible.  The  State  could  not  support  all, 
and,  therefore,  no  course  was  open  but  for  it  to  withdraw  its 
support  altogether,  and  to  turn  over  the  interests  of  the  colleges 
to  the  various  religious  denominations  and  to  the  localities  in 
whose  interests  they  had  been  individually  established.  Then 
began  the  system  of  private  appeal;  or  rather,  I  should  say,  the 
system  of  private  appeal  already  inaugurated  in  the  numerous 
new  colleges,  came  to  be  universally  adopted  in  those  that  had 
already  acquired  renown.  State  support  was  now  either  with 
drawn  altogether,  or  was  meted  out  with  a  sparing  hand. 

Then,  a  second  consequence  followed  hard  upon  the  first,  — 
indeed  sprang  directly  out  of  the  first.  The  fierce  competition 
for  students  of  such  a  superfluity  of  colleges  kept  down  the 
educational  standard;  and  after  the  still  fiercer  struggle  for  life 
made  it  necessary  that  the  best  talent  of  the  college,  as  one  of 
the  victims  of  the  system  once  sadly  but  somewhat  facetiously 
described  it,  should  be  devoted  to  the  work  of  exhorting  the 
brethren  and  of  expectantly  waiting  at  the  death-bed  of  the 
childless  and  the  widow.  Such  a  system  could  not  but  be  pro 
ductive  of  deplorable  results.  It  was  impossible  for  men,  how 
ever  scholarly  and  learned  they  might  be,  —  and  many  of  them 
were  scholarly  and  learned,  —  to  beget  and  disseminate  in  the 
community  either  a  high  respect  for  collegiate  honors  or  an 
ardent  desire  to  obtain  them. 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY    159 

It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  note,  in  passing,  that  it  was  at  this 
stage  of  our  educational  progress,  that  the  discovery  was  made 
that  it  is  unsafe  to  send  young  men  to  institutions  receiving  the 
patronage  of  the  State.  As  we  have  already  seen,  the  Epis 
copalians  of  Virginia,  the  Catholics  of  Maryland,  and  even  the 
stern  Puritans  of  New  England,  did  not  imagine  for  more  than 
a  hundred  and  fifty  years  that  there  was  any  dividing  line  be 
tween  the  methods  by  which  the  lower  schools  and  the  higher 
were  to  be  supported.  But  now  for  the  first  time,  the  doctrine 
came  to  be  entertained,  that  the  youth  of  the  land  would  be  in 
danger  in  any  other  schools  than  in  those  directly  or  indirectly 
under  the  control  of  the  churches.  Fond  parents  who  did  not 
scruple  to  commit  their  tender  and  impressible  children  to  the 
uncertain  influences  of  unknown  teachers  and  unknown  school 
mates  in  the  common  schools,  now  strangely  discovered,  that, 
as  soon  as  the  child  emerges  from  the  impressible  age  and  begins 
to  assert  an  independence  of  thought  and  action,  to  send  him  to 
any  other  than  a  distinctively  religious  school,  would  be,  at 
least,  to  imperil  his  faith  and  to  jeopard  his  morals. 

Such,  as  it  seems  to  me,  are  some  of  the  influences  which  have 
been  at  work  to  embarrass  and  enfeeble  the  cause  of  higher 
education.  I  endeavor  to  present  nothing  more  than  the  plain 
est  picture  in  the  plainest  possible  colors.  If  any  one  suspects 
that  I  have  overdrawn  it,  I  ask  him  candidly  to  look  at  the  result. 
I  ask  him,  —  if  he  is  familiar  with  what  a  great  university  ought 
to  be  and  is,  —  to  look  over  the  magnificent  array  of  States  ad 
mitted  to  the  Union  since  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  tell  me 
how  many  colleges  and  universities  there  are  that  can  be  called 
worthy  of  the  wealth  and  the  enterprise  and  the  general  intelli 
gence  of  this  country.  And  if  some  one  replies  that  time  is  neces 
sary  to  develop  our  system,  I  answer  that  the  Universities  of 
Bonn  and  Munich  and  Berlin  have  all  been  founded  since  the 
beginning  of  this  century,  and  that  not  one  of  them  had  been  in 
existence  a  score  of  years  before  it  had  acquired  world-wide  re 
nown  through  the  labor  of  its  teachers  and  scholars.  It  is  a  fact, 
I  think,  of  the  greatest  significance  to  us  Americans,  that  Nie- 
buhr  the  father  of  modern  history,  and  Liebig  the  founder  of 
organic  chemistry,  and  Hegel  the  author  of  the  most  influential 
school  of  modern  philosophy,  all  acquired  their  imperishable 


160  CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS 

renown  in  universities  less  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  old.  The 
youngest  of  the  German  universities,  with  the  exception  of  the 
one  founded  in  the  territory  acquired  in  the  war  of  1870,  will 
this  very  year  celebrate  the  semi-centennial  anniversary  of  its 
organization,  and  can  boast  of  some  two  hundred  professors  and 
scarcely  less  than  two  thousand  students.  This  is  the  answer  to 
the  declaration  that  our  colleges  must  be  venerable  before  they 
can  be  great. 

But  it  is  time  to  enquire  what  has  been  the  influence  of  our  so- 
called  "system  of  higher  education,"  upon  the  real  educational 
condition  of  the  country.  What  has  been  done  in  the  way  of 
encouraging  young  men  to  seek  a  collegiate  education  by  this 
long  array  of  two  hundred  and  eighty-five  colleges  and  uni 
versities,  all  of  them  entitled,  so  far  as  municipal  law  can  bestow 
it,  to  the  right  of  ranking  themselves  as  schools  of  the  highest 
learning?  We  are  not  left  in  doubt  as  to  what  the  answer  of  this 
question  must  be. 

It  would  be  easy  to  show  a  priori  that  this  undue  multiplica 
tion  of  colleges  would  diminish  the  esteem  in  which  colleges  and 
universities  are  held.  But  we  are  not  left  to  the  unsatisfactory 
conclusions  of  a  priori  reasoning.  Statistics  have  been  accumu 
lated  which  show  conclusively  what  the  tendency  has  been  in 
different  portions  of  the  country.  And  what  is  this  tendency? 
It  is  that,  ever  since  the  earliest  period  for  which  statistics  have 
been  preserved,  the  proportionate  number  of  students  seeking  a 
collegiate  education  has  steadily  diminished.  Nor  is  this  diminu 
tion  confined  to  any  single  portion  of  the  country.  In  New  Eng 
land  as  a  whole,  for  example,  the  proportion  of  students  in  col 
lege  in  1826  was  one  in  1513;  in  1855  it  was  only  one  in  1689;  in 
1869  the  ratio  had  declined  so  that  there  were  only  at  the  rate  of 
one  in  1927.  In  the  country  as  a  whole,  according  to  the  care 
fully  prepared  statistics  of  President  Barnard,  the  number  of 
students  in  college  in  proportion  to  the  population  was,  in  1840, 
one  in  1549;  in  1860,  one  in  2012;  in  1869,  one  in  2546. 

Thus  it  is  obvious  that  the  number  of  undergraduate  students 
for  thirty  or  forty  years  previous  to  1870  was  in  our  country  not 
only  diminishing,  but  that  the  diminution  during  the  last  ten 
years  of  the  period,  was  especially  remarkable.  In  all  parts  of  the 
country,  the  sad  fact  stares  us  in  the  face  that  the  training  which 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY    161 

has  long  been  considered  essential  to  finished  scholarship  has 
been  losing  ground  from  year  to  year  in  the  favor  of  the  people. 

Now  to  this  result  it  is  probable  that  a  number  of  causes  have 
contributed.  The  prevailing  mercenary  spirit  has  doubtless 
exerted  an  influence.  It  is  possible,  moreover,  that  something 
has  been  lost  from  the  fact  that  courses  of  study  have  not  con 
formed  to  the  public  demand.  But  there  is  another  cause  which 
is  probably  far  more  important  than  these.  It  is  the  fact  that  the 
modern  college  has  lost  something  of  its  former  significance  in 
the  popular  imagination.  Ambitious  young  men  who  aspire  to 
professional  and  political  honors  are  not  less  numerous  than  were 
the  same  class  fifty  years  ago.  We  cannot  but  believe  that  these 
young  men  would  resort  to  the  same  means  of  helping  themselves 
forward,  if  those  means  were  to  present  to  their  ambition  the 
same  attractions.  But  the  same  attractions  do  not  exist.  A 
single  one  of  our  Western  States  has  no  less  than  nine  univer 
sities  and  thirty-three  colleges.  Forty-two  universities  and  col 
leges  in  a  single  State  are  not  only  sure  to  be  insignificant,  but, 
what  is  only  less  unfortunate,  are  sure  to  be  thought  insignificant. 
\Vhen  the  popular  imagination  attaches  to  the  college  but  little 
importance,  the  ambitious  youth  is  likely  to  eschew  the  college, 
and  betake  himself  at  once  to  the  more  attractive  experience  of 
the  bar  and  the  political  arena. 

Now  this  is  not  a  mere  picture  of  the  fancy;  it  is  a  representa 
tion  which  is  seen  from  such  statistics  as  have  been  accumulated 
to  be  absolutely  true  to  the  life.  In  the  professions  (with  the 
possible  exception  of  the  clerical)  and  in  positions  of  high  polit 
ical  trust,  the  proportion  of  college-bred  men  is  considerably 
less  than  it  was  in  the  early  years  of  this  century.  Of  the  signers 
of  the  Declaration,  thirty  out  of  fifty-six  were  college-bred. 
Of  the  Senate  of  the  First  Congress,  fifteen  out  of  twenty-six; 
while  of  the  Forty-first  Congress,  the  latest  of  which  informa 
tion  is  accessible,  the  proportion  was  only  seven  out  of  twenty-six. 
If  the  investigation  were  to  be  carried  to  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  the  proportion  would  probably  be  still  more  un 
favorable.  It  is  thus  obvious  that  college  graduates  are  politically 
less  conspicuous  than  they  were  formerly,  just  as  we  have  seen 
them  to  be  less  numerous. 

But  there  is  another  question  to  be  asked.  If,  under  the  sys- 


162  CHARLES   KENDALL  ADAMS 

tern  which  has  prevailed,  the  number  of  students  going  to  col 
lege  has  diminished,  what  has  been  the  effect  of  the  system  on 
the  scholarship  of  those  who  graduate?  On  this  point  it  is  of 
course  difficult  to  speak  with  positive  assurance.  But  this  may 
be  said.  The  same  public  opinion  which  tends  by  its  indiffer 
ence  to  prevent  boys  from  going  to  college  will  at  least  be  easily 
reconciled  to  a  low  standard  of  scholarship.  Moreover  it  must  be 
remembered  that  where  indifference  concerning  high  scholarship 
prevails,  the  fierce  competition  of  small  colleges  must  tend  to 
depress  rather  than  to  elevate  the  standard.  The  struggle  is 
often  a  struggle  for  life,  and  life  too  frequently  depends  not  so 
much  upon  scholarship,  as  upon  scholars. 

Every  educator  is  aware  that  the  greatest  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  elevating  the  standard  of  scholarship  is  the  difficulty  of  rais 
ing  the  preparatory  schools;  and  this  difficulty  arises  very  largely, 
if  not  chiefly,  from  the  fact  that  the  necessities  of  the  smaller 
colleges  require  them  to  accept  of  whatever  preparation  comes 
to  their  hand.  If  in  those  States  which  have  a  college  in  almost 
every  county,  the  condition  of  the  colleges  is  deplorable,  the  con 
dition  of  the  preparatory  schools  is  scarcely  better.  Hence  it  is 
that,  whenever  the  standard  of  scholarship  is  raised,  it  has  to  be 
done  both  in  reliance  upon  the  exceptional  excellence  of  a  few 
tried  schools,  and  in  expectation  that  the  size  of  the  classes  in 
college  will  be  materially  diminished.  No  college  or  university 
can  prosper  unless  it  is  in  some  sense  en  rapport  with  the  pre 
paratory  schools,  and  therefore  it  is  that  the  work  of  raising  the 
standard  of  scholarship  is  both  slow  and  difficult,  —  little  less 
than  the  fabled  work  of  Sisyphus :  — 

..."  adverse  nixantem  trudere  monte 

Saxum." 

But  notwithstanding  all  these  facts,  interesting  and  signifi 
cant  as  they  are  of  themselves,  the  most  important  question  has 
not  yet  been  reached.  The  question  of  transcendent  importance 
is  this:  What  has  been  the  effect  of  our  system  upon  the  stand 
ards  of  attainment  held  up  before  the  public?  Are  our  profes 
sional  men  better  fitted,  or  worse  fitted,  for  their  work  than  were 
men  of  the  same  class  fifty  years  ago?  Are  our  mechanics  better, 
or  are  they  worse?  Are  our  statesmen  and  politicians  men  of 
broader  culture,  of  more  comprehensive  views  and  of  greater 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY    163 

integrity;  or  are  they  inferior  to  the  same  class  of  men  of  a  hun 
dred  years  ago? 

Now  I  would  not  answer  these  questions  of  so  vital  impor 
tance  in  any  pessimistic  spirit.  I  desire  to  avoid  exaggeration; 
and  I  concede  that  there  is  always  a  tendency  to  disparage  the 
present  in  comparison  with  the  past.  I  remember  that  Hesiod 
deplored  the  degeneracy  of  his  own  age  and  sang  the  glories  of 
the  days  of  his  fathers.  The  Sophists  of  Greece  were  little  but 
an  organized  body  of  quacks  and  complainers  of  the  condition 
of  their  own  time.  Cicero  mourned  over  the  degenerate  poetry 
of  Bavius  and  Msevius;  and  the  critics  and  grammarians  of 
Alexandria  in  ridiculing  the  men  of  their  time  only  succeeded 
in  setting  up  "a  kingdom  of  learned  dullness  and  empty  pro 
fession."  England  in  the  days  of  Walpole  was  openly  governed 
by  the  belief  that  every  man  had  his  price;  and  even  at  the  be 
ginning  of  the  present  century,  seats  in  Parliament  were  openly 
sold  to  the  highest  bidder.  I  admit  then,  without  reserve,  that 
there  have  always  been  corrupt  men  in  politics,  and  pretenders 
in  literature  and  science.  Greece  had  her  Alcibiades,  Rome  had 
her  Verres,  and  even  our  own  Revolutionary  age  had  its  Arnold 
and  its  Aaron  Burr.  All  this  I  concede.  I  admit  that  no  age  has 
been  exempt  from  the  affliction  of  pretence  and  dishonesty. 

Nor  do  I  esteem  it  a  reproach  that  the  statesmen  of  to-day 
fall  below  the  political  stature  of  those  who  framed  the  Consti 
tution;  for  who  can  read  the  political  writings  of  Jefferson,  and 
Adams,  and  Hamilton,  and  Madison,  and  not  count  them  as 
worthy  to  rank  with  the  foremost  men  of  all  time,  —  almost  in 
deed  with  those  intellectual  giants  who,  according  to  the  figure 
of  Macchiavelli,  rise  far  above  the  level  of  their  fellow-men,  and, 
stretching  out  their  hands  to  each  other  across  the  interval  of  the 
ages,  transmit  to  succeeding  generations  the  torch  of  art  and 
poetry  and  political  science?  In  these  days,  so  redolent  of  sweet 
memories  of  great  men  and  great  deeds,  it  is  no  disparagement, 
but  an  exaltation  rather,  to  be  allowed  to  sit  at  their  feet  and 
acknowledge  their  superior  virtues. 

But  though  all  these  considerations  have  their  weight,  we 
ought  not  to  be  deterred  by  them  from  a  rational  examination  of 
our  own  age;  and  after  all  concessions  are  made  to  that  tendency 
of  human  nature  of  which  I  have  spoken,  I  fear  it  will  have  to  be 


164  CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS 

admitted,  that  we  are  living  in  an  age  of  low  standards  and  of 
cheap  fame. 

Now  I  have  no  purpose  to  ring  the  mournful  changes  on  the 
trite  topic  of  political  corruption  and  of  pretentious  and  aspir 
ing  ignorance.  It  may  be,  as  has  been  said,  that  this  is  not  so 
much  an  age  of  frauds  as  an  age  of  the  exposure  of  frauds;  but 
whether  this  dictum  be  true  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  there  is 
throughout  the  country  a  growing  tendency  among  thoughtful 
persons  to  take  melancholy  views  of  our  political  methods  and 
our  political  tendencies.  In  regard  to  this  political  malaise  I 
shall  pause  only  to  say,  that,  in  every  age  and  among  every  peo 
ple,  there  have  been  corrupt  men  and  ignorant  men,  who  have 
aspired  to  place  and  pelf;  and  furthermore,  that  always  their 
aspirations  have  been  ardent  just  in  proportion  to  their  pros 
pects  of  success.  If  in  our  time,  or  in  any  time,  therefore,  there 
is  especial  thrift  of  ignorance  and  dishonesty,  the  remedy  is  not 
in  merely  complaining  of  it,  but  in  the  slow  and  arduous  work 
of  so  changing  public  opinion  as  to  make  its  thrift  impossible. 
It  is  coming  to  be  a  practical  question  whether  we  do  not  often 
exhaust  our  strength  in  attempting  to  reform  bad  men,  when  we 
should  be  devoting  our  energies  to  the  work  of  selecting  and 
using  good  men. 

It  was  a  saying  of  Kant,  that  out  of  wood  so  crooked  as  that 
of  which  man  is  made  nothing  absolutely  straight  can  ever  be 
formed.  The  saying  is  but  an  amplification  of  a  far  higher  au 
thority,  and  is  doubtless  true.  But  even  Kant  would  admit  that 
there  are  degrees  of  crookedness  and  perversity,  and  it  therefore 
becomes  a  practical  question  to  know  how  far  the  energies  of 
the  country  ought  to  be  exerted  in  correcting  the  perversity  of 
perverse  men.  Surely  the  master  mechanic  does  not  expend  his 
energies  in  trying  to  straighten  the  crooked  wood  with  which  the 
forests  abound;  and  may  it  not  be  possible  —  I  ask  the  question 
simply  as  a  query  —  may  it  not  be  possible  that  the  present  age 
is  using  much  of  its  strength  in  straightening  crooked  material 
when  it  should  be  devoting  its  energies  to  producing  and  making 
the  best  use  of  the  best  material?  Shall  I  be  thought  quite  wrong 
in  suggesting  that  the  business  of  straightening  crooked  wood, 
or,  to  drop  the  figure,  of  correcting  perversity,  has  become  almost 
a  profession?  Ah,  but  how  difficult  is  the  work!  It  has  been  well 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY    165 

said,  that  tendencies  are  stronger  than  men;  and  yet  how  often 
are  specific  remedies  sought  when  only  constitutional  renovation 
would  be  efficient?  How  general  is  the  must-do-something 
impulse  whenever  an  evil  is  detected !  A  desire  to  discover  evils 
and  a  desire  to  correct  them,  ought  not,  of  course,  to  incur  our 
censure;  but  are  not  these  desires  through  ignorance  often 
utterly  misdirected? 

One  of  the  profoundest  thinkers  of  the  present  generation  has 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  we  always  find  among  people, 
in  proportion  as  they  are  ignorant,  a  belief  in  specifics  and  a  con 
fidence  in  pressing  the  adoption  of  them.  The  Bushman  believes 
that  every  death  is  occasioned  by  a  witch,  and  that  when  the 
witch  is  killed,  a  countless  number  of  deaths  is  prevented.  But 
a  belief  in  specifics  is  not  confined  to  the  heart  of  Africa.  It  pre 
vails  in  Europe  and  America  as  well. 

In  Austria  a  great  evil  was  thought  to  be  the  number  of  im 
provident  marriages.  When  the  Concordat  made  improvident 
marriages  impossible,  the  reformers  said:  The  evil  is  corrected. 
But  straightway  it  was  found  that  the  principal  result  of  the 
change  was  to  increase  enormously  the  number  of  illegitimate 
children;  and  when,  to  mitigate  the  misery  of  the  foundlings, 
the  government  provided  hospitals,  the  result  again  was  to  in 
crease  greatly  the  number  of  infants  abandoned. 

In  England  the  Building  Act  was  passed  in  answer  to  a  de 
mand  that  something  should  be  done  to  prevent  the  overcrowd 
ing  of  small  houses  and  tenements.  This  Act,  together  with  the 
Lodging-House  Act  accomplished  its  purpose;  but  it  drove  the 
vagrants  into  the  streets  and  compelled  them  to  sleep  under 
bridges,  or  in  the  parks,  or  even,  for  warmth's  sake,  on  the 
dunghills.  It  was  confidently  thought  by  Mr.  Bradlaugh  and 
others  that  the  deplorable  condition  of  the  English  peasantry 
could  be  relieved  by  the  formation  of  leagues  and  unions  and 
the  organization  of  strikes,  but  Mr.  Brassey,  in  his  book  on 
Work  mid  Wages,  has  conclusively  shown  that  the  influence 
of  agitation  among  the  laborers  has  been  to  frighten  capital  and 
to  withdraw  it  from  the  active  industries  of  agriculture  and  manu 
facture,  and  to  place  it  in  foreign  bonds;  —  thus  in  fact  lower 
ing  the  price  of  labor  by  just  so  much  as  it  has  diminished  the 
industrial  pursuits.  In  France,  during  much  of  this  century,  a 


166  CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS 

belief  in  the  omnipotence  of  specific  remedies  has  been  almost 
universal.  Many  of  the  people  believed  in  the  existence  of  a 
universal  panacea  for  all  their  political  ills,  if  only  they  could 
contrive  to  find  it.  In  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  Saint-Just 
declared  that  all  the  evils  under  which  the  country  labored  were 
caused  by  an  abandonment  of  agricultural  life;  and  his  remedy, 
seriously  proposed,  was  that  all  the  people  should  be  made  to 
become  farmers,  and  that  the  condition  of  voting  should  be  the 
raising  of  four  sheep  per  annum.  A  little  later  Fourier  invented 
another  method  of  curing  the  national  ills;  and  demonstrated, 
apparently  to  the  satisfaction  of  a  large  number  of  followers, 
that,  if  his  mode  of  organizing  society  could  only  be  generally 
adopted,  "  zebras  would  soon  come  to  be  as  much  used  as 
horses,  men  would  live  three  or  four  hundred  years  instead  of 
seventy,  and,  what  would  be  still  better,  the  globe  would  soon 
have  thirty-seven  millions  of  poets  equal  to  Homer,  thirty- 
seven  millions  of  philosophers  equal  to  Newton,  and  thirty- 
seven  millions  of  dramatists  equal  to  Moliere." 

In  Wisconsin  the  mass  of  the  people  believed  that  by  control 
ling  the  price  of  freight  irrespectively  of  charter  obligations  an 
immense  advantage  would  be  gained  by  the  farmers,  and  there 
fore  in  spite  of  the  warnings  of  all  political  economists  the 
"Potter  Law"  was  passed.  The  result  was  that  feeble  railroads 
were  stopped,  even  the  stronger  ones  could  not  negotiate  a  bond 
in  England  or  elsewhere,  construction  ceased,  and  a  subsequent 
Legislature  had  to  hasten  to  repeal  the  law;  but  it  was  not  until 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  had  been  sacrificed. 

In  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  men  were  perplexed  to  know  how 
to  keep  down  the  premium  on  gold,  as  though  the  premium 
could  be  kept  down,  while  millions  of  irredeemable  paper  were 
issuing  monthly  from  the  press  and  were  called  money.  Con 
gress  even,  as  it  will  be  remembered,  took  the  matter  in  hand, 
and  like  the  English  king,  commanded  the  tide  to  retire;  but  the 
only  effect  was  to  increase  the  violence  of  the  mocking  surges, 
and  Congress  itself  had  to  withdraw. 

Perhaps  I  might  say  that  the  same  reformatory  spirit  grap 
pled  with  the  tremendous  evil  of  intemperance.  Societies  were 
formed  for  the  purpose  of  combating  it.  The  evil,  prodigious  of 
itself,  by  the  natural  accumulation  of  zeal,  came  to  be  greatly 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY    167 

magnified.  The  impression  began  to  prevail  that  intemperance 
was  enormously  increasing,  and  that,  too,  in  face  of  the  fact  that 
but  a  few  generations  ago  sobriety  was  the  exception,  and  that 
even  so  late  as  the  days  of  our  great-grandfathers,  the  man  who 
had  never  been  intoxicated  was  a  rarity.  Let  us  abolish  intoxi 
cation  altogether,  cried  men.  Let  us  simply  make  intoxication 
impossible  by  prohibiting  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  all  that 
can  intoxicate.  The  cry  carried  the  day;  with  what  result  we  all 
know.  Alas,  in  spite  of  all  law,  and  all  officers  of  the  law,  intem 
perance  continued,  and  it  is  even  now  a  question  whether  in  one 
single  State  the  evil  has  been  diminished  by  prohibition.  What 
ever  may  be  the  answer  to  this  question,  it  is  certain  that  pro 
hibitory  laws  are  everywhere  failing,  and  that  men  are  every 
where  beginning  to  realize  that  the  appetite  for  strong  drink  is 
the  most  energetic  and  persistent  perversity  of  human  nature,  — 
has  been  certainly  since  the  days  of  Noah,  and  will  be  probably 
until  the  millennium. 

So  in  regard  to  the  matter  of  pure  administration  of  govern 
ment.  We  cry  out  for  honest  men  at  the  head  of  our  govern 
ment,  and  we  do  well.  God  forbid  that  I  should  say  aught  against 
such  a  demand.  But,  my  friends,  let  us  not  be  deluded  into  the 
belief  that  honesty  can  work  miracles.  Ever  since  the  days  of 
President  Jackson,  there  has  been  lurking  in  our  political  sys 
tem  a  poison,  now  torpid,  now  active,  but  ever  increasing  in 
virulence  until  at  the  present  time  it  has  permeated  to  the  ut 
most  extremity  of  the  body  politic.  To  put  honest  men  in  office 
so  long  as  the  virus  is  still  working  in  the  system,  is  merely  to 
apply  soothing  and  palliating  lotions.  It  is  well  so  far  as  it  goes, 
but  it  goes  only  a  little  way.  So  long  as  there  are  forty  thou 
sand  and  more  civil  offices  hi  the  United  States,  subject  to  the 
irresponsible  will  of  the  magistrate,  and  so  long  as  the  maxim 
"to  the  victor  belong  the  spoils  "  is  practically  in  full  force,  there 
can  be  no  assurance  that  government  will  be  pure.  England  has 
passed  through  every  stage  of  an  experience  not  essentially  un 
like  that  to  which  we  are  now  subjected,  and  it  was  not  until 
the  nation  adopted  a  system  of  thorough  civil  reform  that  the 
era  of  pure  administration  was  inaugurated.  It  is  not  for  us  to 
hope  for  a  return  of  administrative  purity  until  we  are  ourselves 
willing  to  profit  by  the  examples  of  other  nations.  We  have  to 


168  CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS 

return  to  our  fathers'  methods,  if  we  would  have  our  fathers' 
pure  government  return  to  us. 

The  greatest  man  of  modern  science  said  that  he  knew  not 
how  it  might  seem  to  others,  but  that  it  seemed  to  himself  that 
he  had  merely  walked  upon  the  shores  of  time  gathering  here 
and  there  doubtfully  a  pebble,  while  the  great  world  of  science 
lay  beyond  his  knowledge.  This  was  the  declaration  of  a  true 
sage,  —  of  a  man  whose  judgment  in  all  matters  to  which  he 
gave  his  attention  was  scarcely  inferior  to  his  genius.  The  nine 
teenth  century  has  inherited  the  fruits  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton's 
genius,  but  I  fear  it  can  hardly  claim  to  have  inherited  his 
spirit.  The  American  who  has  not  yet  made  up  his  mind  on 
every  question  of  the  day  is  almost  a  curiosity,  and  a  genuine 
wonder  is  the  man  who  reserves  his  judgment  until  he  has  com 
pleted  his  thinking. 

It  became  a  legal  maxim  as  early  as  the  days  of  Tacitus  that 
the  more  corrupt  the  state  the  more  numerous  the  laws  — 
corruptissima  republica,  plurimae  leges,  —  and  yet  every  winter 
spreads  thousands  of  laws  upon  our  statute  books,  so  crudely 
framed  and  so  ill  digested,  that  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  the 
work  of  the  next  winter  is  to  undo  them.  The  pregnant  words 
with  which  Pliny  describes  the  young  Italy  of  his  generation, 
seem  almost  to  have  been  written  for  the  young  America  of 
ours :  —  Statim  sapiunt,  statim  sciunt  omnia,  neminem  verentur, 
imitantur  neminem,  atque  ipsi  sibi  exempla  sunt. 

Now  if  these  tendencies  and  habits,  of  which  I  have  spoken 
somewhat  at  length,  are  evils,  and  I  think  you  will  all  concede 
them  to  be  such,  how  are  they  to  be  successfully  combated? 
Surely  not  by  the  application  of  any  such  mere  "specific"  as 
those  to  which  I  have  alluded.  The  first  thing  to  be  done  is  to 
acquire  a  complete  understanding  of  the  nature  of  the  difficulty 
to  be  removed  or  remedied.  It  must  be  understood  first  of  all 
that  in  the  vast  majority  of  instances,  the  evils,  both  political 
and  social,  which  confront  us,  are  not  diseases,  but  are  mere 
signs  of  diseases,  not  accidental  effects,  but  inevitable  results, 
of  the  habit  of  thought  and  the  material  condition  of  society. 
The  history  of  the  race  unquestionably  teaches  this  fact  with 
the  most  unmistakable  distinctness  —  and  I  would  that  it  were 
emblazoned  upon  every  university  and  indeed  upon  every 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY    169 

church  — a  fact  well  formulated  by  Lecky,  that  "the  beliefs 
and  the  habits  of  a  given  age  or  people  are  mainly  determined, 
not  by  specific  and  assignable  reasons  and  arguments  and  ac 
tions,  but  by  the  general  intellectual  conditions  of  society, — con 
ditions  which  cannot  be  suddenly  created,  but  which  can  only 
be  slowly  brought  about  and  materially  changed  by  the  com 
bined  influence  of  all  the  forces  of  civilization."  This,  if  I  have 
not  read  history  in  vain,  is  one  of  its  most  important  lessons.  If 
it  be  true,  as  Emerson  has  said,  that  every  man  is  a  quotation 
from  all  his  ancestors,  it  is  no  less  true  that  every  nation  is  a 
quotation  from  all  its  antecedents.  And  yet  in  the  very  face  of 
this  lesson  men  expect  republics  built  on  the  traditions  and 
habits  of  despotism  to  flourish,  and  await  miraculous  changes 
as  the  result  of  then*  impotent  legislation  on  some  of  the  most 
fixed  relations  of  society.  Let  us  not  hope  that  anything  can 
effect  a  change  in  this  respect  excepting  that  more  enlightened 
public  opinion  which  comes  from  a  more  thorough  and  com 
prehensive  knowledge  of  the  history  and  experience  of  mankind. 

And  for  effecting  this  change  the  hope  of  the  country  is  in  its 
higher  education.  Lord  Bacon  affirmed  that  "a  knowledge  of 
the  speculative  opinions  of  the  men  between  twenty  and  thirty 
years  of  age,  is  the  great  source  of  political  prophecy."  The  great 
source  of  political  prophecy,  —  ah  then,  of  what  consummate 
importance  is  it,  that  our  young  men  between  twenty  and  thirty 
should  think  aright !  If  the  saying  of  Lord  Bacon  is  true,  —  and 
who  can  gainsay  it?  —  the  hope  of  our  country  is  not  solely,  not 
even  chiefly  in  our  common  schools,  but  largely  in  our  colleges 
and  universities.  In  every  country  truly  free  it  is,  after  all,  the 
cultivated  mind  that  is  the  controlling  influence  and  motor  of 
affairs.  Its  operation  may  not  be  obvious,  we  may  not  see  it,  we 
may  not  feel  it,  we  may  not  weigh  it,  but  like  one  of  the  forces 
of  nature,  though  it  works  silently,  its  potent  influence  is  every 
where  present.  The  force  of  gravity  is  so  gentle  that  we  can 
scarcely  perceive  it;  and  yet  its  millions  of  gossamer  threads 
bind  the  earth  together  and  even  keep  the  planets  in  their  places. 

Such  is  the  influence  of  cultivated  mind  on  society.  Though 
Martin  Luther  began  by  begging  his  bread  for  a  "pious  canticle" 
in  the  streets  of  Eisenach,  and  though  he  was  opposed  by  the 
opinions  and  the  corruptions  of  his  time;  yet,  by  his  studious  toil 


170  CHARLES   KENDALL  ADAMS 

of  days  and  nights,  he  became  able,  as  Lord  Bacon  said  of  him, 
"to  summon  all  learning  and  all  antiquity  to  his  succor,"  and 
hence  "was  not  only  sustained  by  conquering  armies  and  coun 
tenanced  by  princes,  but,  what  was  a  thousand  times  better, 
was  revered  as  a  benefactor  and  a  spiritual  parent  by  millions 
of  his  grateful  countrymen."  I  hold  it  to  be  the  duty,  —  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  use  the  strong  old  Saxon  word,  —  the  duty,  of 
every  educator  and  of  every  seminary  of  higher  learning  to  do 
what  it  can  to  modify  the  material  tendencies  of  the  age  both  by 
precept  and  by  example.  I  am  persuaded  that  what  the  age 
needs,  and  what  our  nation  is  sighing  for,  is  not  so  much  a 
wider  diffusion  of  the  ability  to  read  and  write,  as  a  higher 
standard  of  excellence  in  morals,  and  in  intelligence,  and  in  learn 
ing,  on  the  part  of  that  class  which  creates,  and  inspires,  and 
controls  public  opinion.  A  little  learning  may  be  better  than  no 
learning,  but  we  must  not  forget  that  it  becomes  the  "dangerous 
thing"  of  the  proverb,  when  it  only  enables  its  possessor  to  lift 
himself  into  places  of  responsibility  and  power.  Better  lawyers, 
better  physicians,  better  clergymen,  better  editors,  better 
teachers,  better  legislators  —  these  are  the  need  of  the  republic, 
and  it  is  only  by  producing  these  that  we  can  make  it  certain 
that  the  republic  will  be  better  directed. 

Within  the  past  ten  years  the  world  has  seen  unrolled  before 
its  astonished  vision  a  political  panorama  of  most  extraordinary 
and  surprising  interest;  and  yet  how  many  have  thought  that  it 
is  chiefly  remarkable,  as  an  example  of  the  value  of  higher  edu 
cation  upon  national  prosperity?  At  the  beginning  of  the  cen 
tury  Prussia  was  torn,  bleeding,  impoverished,  stripped  of  half 
her  territory,  by  a  foreign  foe,  and  crushed  under  the  cruel  heel 
of  a  feudal  nobility  at  home.  But  this  feeble  nationality  fell 
under  the  immediate  and  the  dominant  influence  of  a  great  man 
and  a  great  idea.  The  great  thought  of  the  Freiherr  von  Stein 
was,  that  if  Prussia  ever  could  be  built  up  into  a  strong  na 
tionality,  it  would  be,  not  by  devoting  the  chief  energies  of  the 
country  to  the  development  of  material  resources,  but  to  the 
development  of  men.  And  the  whole  nation  was  inspired  with 
the  idea,  that  whatever  they  might  want  a  man  for,  the  way  to 
make  the  most  of  him,  and  get  the  most  out  of  him  for  the  na 
tion,  was  by  giving  him  the  most  thorough  general  training,  and 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY    171 

then  the  most  thorough  technical  training.  Royalty  vacated  its 
palaces  at  Berlin  and  at  Bonn  and  universities  were  installed  in 
its  place.  The  dominant  idea  of  the  nation  became  this,  that  for 
every  vocation  in  life,  men  must  receive  the  best  training  which 
the  nation  could  afford. 

And  we  of  this  decade  have  seen  the  result.  The  little  nation 
of  two  generations  ago  has  not  only  become  in  higher  learning 
the  educator  of  the  world,  but  has  become  the  strongest  power 
of  Europe.  When  put  to  the  test,  its  generals  could  plan  a  cam 
paign  which  for  comprehensiveness  and  unfailing  certainty  of 
result  exceeded  everything  done  under  the  great  Napoleon,  and 
the  soldiers,  after  defeating  the  proudest  legions  of  the  world, 
could  recreate  themselves  by  writing  and  singing  the  Kutschke 
Lied  in  thirty-two  languages. 

I  hope  I  shall  be  pardoned  for  speaking  a  single  word  in  con 
clusion  to  those  who  are  about  to  graduate.  The  pride  of  a  uni 
versity  is  her  children.  The  great  work  of  a  university  in  in 
fluencing  public  opinion  is  chiefly  through  those  whom  she  sends 
out  with  her  honors.  Do  not,  I  charge  you,  do  not  go  out  with 
the  impression  that  your  education  is  completed.  The  young 
man  who  goes  out  from  a  university  and  straightway  throws 
aside  his  books  is  unworthy  ever  to  have  been  within  a  university. 
Remember,  moreover,  that  the  life  of  a  scholar  is  a  life  of  pro 
digious  work.  The  Bishop  of  Exeter  once  said,  and  probably 
said  truly,  that  of  all  work  of  permanent  value,  nine-tenths  is 
drudgery.  A  generation  ago  when  Mr.  Choate  was  recognized 
as  the  great  light  of  the  American  bar,  the  impression  was  rife 
that  his  genius  was  so  colossal  that  he  had  but  to  stand  upon  his 
feet  and  perhaps  with  his  long  fingers  shake  up  his  tangled  locks, 
in  order  to  produce  an  oration  that  would  carry  sure  conviction 
to  an  audience  or  a  jury.  But  after  his  death  it  was  revealed 
that  no  lawyer  of  his  time  prepared  his  cases  with  so  minute 
care,  and,  what  is  of  still  greater  interest,  that  during  the  most 
busy  portion  of  his  professional  career,  it  was  his  rule  to  get  at 
least  an  hour  every  day  —  rescued  from  sleep  or  society  or  rec 
reation,  for  Latin  or  Greek  or  some  other  favorite  study.  Mr. 
Gowans  wrote  to  the  New  York  Times,  that  Mr.  Choate,  some 
ten  years  before  his  death,  unexpectedly  detained  a  day  in  New 
York,  came  into  his  store  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  and 


172  CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS 

enquired  for  the  department  of  the  classics.  On  being  directed  to 
them  the  great  lawyer  began  his  researches  and  so  eager  was  he, 
that  Mr.  Gowans  had  to  interrupt  him  in  order  to  close  the  store 
at  seven  in  the  evening.  Thus  for  nine  hours  Choate  with  neither 
food  nor  drink  had  pored  over  his  work;  and  when  asked  what 
he  had  found,  responded  that  he  had  been  greatly  excited  over 
several  Greek  books  that  he  had  never  read,  and  especially  over 
a  seven-volume  edition  of  the  famous  commentary  on  Homer  by 
the  Greek  bishop  Eustathius  of  the  twelfth  century.  This  was 
the  scholarship  of  the  man  who  was  popularly  supposed  to  con 
vince  juries  by  a  kind  of  inspiration. 

When  the  old  man  eloquent,  whose  culture  was  the  consum 
mate  fruit  of  that  earlier  school  of  training  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  was  in  the  presidential  chair,  he  "found  time  amidst 
the  incessant  calls  and  interruptions  of  his  office  to  address  a 
series  of  letters  to  his  youngest  son  —  some  of  them  written  in 
the  busiest  portion  of  the  session  —  containing  an  elaborate 
analysis  of  the  orations  of  Cicero,  destined  to  aid  the  young  man 
in  the  perusal  of  this,  his  favorite  author.  Some  of  these  letters,** 
Mr.  Everett  declares,  "would  be  thought  a  good  day's  work  for 
a  scholar  by  profession";  and  yet,  at  the  close  of  one  of  them,  he 
adds  that  he  is  reading  Evelyn's  Sylva  with  great  delight. 

The  greatest  lawyer  of  antiquity  boasted  that  his  philosoph 
ical  studies  had  never  interfered  with  his  services  to  his  clients 
and  to  the  republic,  and  that  he  had  only  dedicated  to  them  the 
hours  which  others  give  to  their  walks,  their  repasts,  and  their 
pleasures.  Looking  on  those  voluminous  works  which  have  been 
the  delight  of  all  subsequent  time,  we  cannot  but  be  surprised 
at  the  observation.  But  the  very  fact  that  his  philosophical 
works  bear  the  names  of  the  different  villas  he  possessed,  indi 
cates  that  he  composed  them  as  the  recreation  of  their  respective 
retirements.  They  were  all  the  result  of  that  magic  art  in  the 
employment  of  our  leisure,  which  is  said  to  multiply  our  days. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  exhortation  of  Goethe,  — 

"  Wie  das  Gestirn 
Ohne  Hast,  aber  ohne  Rast, 
Drehe  sich  jeder  um  die  eigene  Last,"  — 

(unhasting  but  unresting  as  the  stars),  —  is  the  condition  and  the 
accompaniment  of  every  great  excellence.  Be  assured  then, 


HIGHER  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONAL  PROSPERITY    173 

gentlemen,  that  no  mere  longings  and  sighing  for  the  rewards 
of  greatness  will  bring  either  greatness  or  its  rewards.  Only 
after  a  life  of  earnest,  and  honest,  and  persistent  striving  may  it 
be  said  of  you :  — 

"  For  country  and  humanity  he  wrought, 
And,  which  is  best  and  happiest  yet,  all  this 
With  God  not  parted  from  him  — 
But  favoring  and  assisting  to  the  end." 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  SUCCESS 

BY   CHARLES   HENRY    BELL 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  New  Hampshire,  at  Dartmouth  College, 
June  29.  1881. 

IT  was  a  sagacious  monarch,  in  ancient  times,  who  ordered 
that  whenever  he  appeared  in  danger  of  being  unduly  exalted 
by  the  pride  of  grandeur  and  power,  he  should  be  reminded  that 
he  was  but  a  man.  In  a  like  spirit  now,  while  the  echoes  of  the 
centennial  bells  yet  linger  in  our  ears,  while  poet  and  orator  vie 
with  one  another  in  extolling  the  heroism  of  our  sires,  and  the 
peaceful  victories,  not  less  renowned,  of  their  sons,  while  the 
greatness,  the  glory,  the  intelligence,  and  the  virtue  of  the  Ameri 
can  people  are  the  theme  of  exhaustless  eulogy,  it  may  be  wise 
to  listen  to  a  little  unpalatable  truth  about  ourselves,  as  a  pre 
servative  against  an  excess  of  self-conceit. 

So  in  lieu  of  a  discourse  upon  scholarly  themes,  which  might 
better  befit  this  occasion,  I  shall  ask  your  indulgence  for  pre 
senting  some  crude  thoughts  upon  a  failing  which  seems  to  have 
assumed  national  dimensions,  —  the  Worship  of  Success. 

Success  is  a  word  of  varied  import.  In  a  higher  sense,  he  only 
can  be  said  to  be  truly  successful  who  has  accomplished  some 
thing  for  the  advancement  of  humanity.  But  in  its  popular 
acceptance,  as  we  shall  employ  it  here,  the  term  signifies  the 
acquisition  of  power,  place,  prestige,  or  wealth;  the  last  of  these 
especially,  as  that  is  the  object  of  the  efforts  of  the  greatest  num 
ber,  and  exercises  the  most  potent  sway  over  the  popular  mind. 

All  people  and  all  ages  have  had  their  heroes.  Nature  has 
from  time  to  time  produced  her  favorites,  strong  of  will,  un 
daunted  in  spirit,  wise  in  purpose,  leaders  of  men.  In  war  they 
have  come  naturally  to  the  front;  in  civil  life  they  have  filled 
seats  at  council  boards;  have  been  the  heads  of  great  enter 
prises;  have  been  lords  of  the  market  and  the  exchange.  Humble 
origin  or  the  want  of  worldly  advantages  could  throw  no  ob 
stacles  in  the  way  of  their  asserting  themselves.  They  took  the 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  SUCCESS  175 

foremost  places  by  virtue  of  nature's  patent  of  nobility,  which 
was  seen  and  recognized  of  all  men. 

On  these  architects  of  their  own  fortunes  the  popular  sym 
pathy  has  always  been  lavished.  In  honoring  them,  the  masses 
felt  that  they  were  honoring  their  own  representatives.  The 
legend  of  William  Tell,  sprung  from  the  humblest  class  of  society, 
championing  its  cause,  and  scaling  the  heights  of  renown  as  the 
deliverer  of  his  nation,  is  found  to  be  but  a  repetition  of  earlier 
myths,  which  prove  how  loyally  the  popular  heart  has  beaten  in 
unison  with  the  achievements  of  a  child  of  the  people,  from  the 
very  infancy  of  the  world.  And  the  romance  of  Sir  Richard 
Whittington,  the  runaway  apprentice,  summoned  back  by  the 
prophetic  refrain  of  the  church  bells  to  be  thrice  Lord  Mayor  of 
London,  is  but  another  instance  of  the  faithful  tribute  of  the 
popular  admiration  to  success  won  by  unaided  manliness. 

But  in  times  past,  and  in  other  lands,  men  have  admired,  but 
have  not  imitated.  They  looked  up  to  the  few  transcendent 
beings  who  took  their  rise  from  the  lower  plane,  and  mounted  to 
the  lofty  ether  of  opulence  and  power,  as  they  might  gaze  at  the 
stars  in  the  heavens,  marvelling  at  their  brilliancy,  but  never 
dreaming  of  taking  a  place  beside  them.  For  great  success  was 
rare  and  exceptional,  and  too  far  out  of  the  range  of  ordinary 
probabilities  to  influence  the  conduct  of  the  great  majority.  Few, 
and  only  those  who  feel  within  themselves  the  spur  of  an  ambi 
tion  which  despises  difficulties,  and  counts  life  itself  a  secondary 
thing,  have  been  encouraged  by  the  scattered  instances  to  a 
living  faith  that  they  too  might  fairly  aspire  to  like  favors  of 
fortune. 

But  not  so  in  our  own  country.  In  no  other  land,  at  no  other 
time,  have  the  avenues  to  success  in  every  department  of  human 
endeavor  been  so  wide  open  to  all  as  in  this  America  at  the  pres 
ent  hour.  There  is  absolutely  no  bar  to  impede  the  progress  of 
the  humblest  or  the  weakest.  Every  one  has  perfect  freedom 
to  make  the  most  of  his  powers,  and  to  win  his  way  to  the  goal 
of  an  honorable  ambition.  Equal  competition  is  the  birthright 
of  every  citizen.  He  who  starts  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder  of  for 
tune  may  as  reasonably  hope  to  reach  the  top  as  any  rival  who 
begins  higher  up.  Every  schoolboy  carries  in  his  satchel  the 
possibility  of  the  presidency. 


176  CHARLES  HENRY  BELL 

Justly  proud  are  we  of  this  crowning  feature  of  true  democ 
racy.  And  no  other  people  are  so  ready  as  our  people  to  hail 
with  plaudits  every  instance  in  which  ability,  courage,  and  per 
severance,  come  from  what  source  they  may,  win  honor  or  for 
tune.  The  history  of  such  a  career  is  common  property,  and  a 
public  encouragement;  every  step  of  its  progress  is  studied  and 
canvassed;  and  canonization,  in  the  American  calendar,  is  its 
consummation . 

Because  these  triumphs  in  our  country  are  within  the  reach 
of  the  many,  because  they  are  not  exceptional  but  normal,  and 
are  continually  occurring  within  the  observation  of  all,  therefore 
it  is  that  the  popular  admiration  for  success  has  entered  more 
into  the  every-day  life  of  our  people,  and  more  directly  and 
powerfully  affected  their  ideas  and  feelings  and  conduct. 

You  may  hear  its  expression  in  every  place  of  public  resort  — 
in  the  exchange,  in  the  railway  station,  and  even  in  the  coun 
try  store  and  the  mechanic's  shop,  and  from  persons  of  every 
station  and  degree.  Two  men  can  hardly  meet  without  com 
paring  views  respecting  some  one  who  has  risen  to  be  a  public 
character  by  originating  a  new  invention,  by  planning  a  shrewd 
speculation,  by  gaining  a  fortune,  or  by  distancing  competition 
in  the  political  race.  To  be  successful,  in  whatever  direction,  is 
to  earn  the  right  to  general  encomium. 

And  the  newspaper,  faithful  exponent  of  the  fashions  of  the 
times,  voices  the  popular  sentiment  by  holding  up  to  the  widest 
recognition  the  merits  of  the  men  who  succeed.  It  writes  their 
biographies  in  superlatives;  it  chronicles  their  goings  out  and 
their  comings  in;  it  gives  an  inventory  of  their  characteristics 
and  their  possessions;  it  calls  in  the  engraver's  art  to  preserve  the 
lineaments  of  their  countenances  and  the  architecture  of  their 
dwellings.  Kings  have  no  private  life  it  is  said;  but  no  king  can 
live  more  constantly  in  the  public  eye  than  some  of  these  suc 
cessful  Americans. 

It  could  not  but  be  that  the  worship  of  success  thus  evidenced 
by  tongue  and  pen,  has  been  a  mighty  incentive  to  ambition. 
In  fact  it  has  permeated  and  given  character  to  the  nation,  so 
that  now  no  one  with  a  particle  of  self-reliance  feels  that  there 
is  any  presumption  in  his  desire  to  measure  himself  with  the 
best  of  his  fellows  in  the  struggle  for  superiority.  Our  country- 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  SUCCESS  177 

men,  alert  and  confident  by  constitution,  and  stimulated  by 
climate,  are  thus  spurred  on  to  intenser  activity  by  the  vision 
of  honor,  or  power,  or  riches,  that  is  perpetually  in  the  per 
spective.  The  push  and  drive  of  We  on  this  side  the  Atlantic, 
especially  in  those  centres  where  the  loadstone  of  success  exerts 
its  greatest  attractive  force,  is  beyond  example.  Nowhere  else 
under  the  sun  is  to  be  found  so  eager,  restless,  hurrying  a  mortal 
as  the  t}Tpical  American.  He  grudges  the  time  he  has  to  borrow 
from  his  business  to  take  the  nutriment  which  keeps  his  active 
body  from  collapse.  Five  minutes'  detention  on  the  railway  he 
resents  as  a  personal  injury.  He  would  be  glad  if  some  ingenious 
Yankee  would  invent  a  more  rapid  method  of  transmitting  the 
news  of  the  market  than  the  electric  telegraph.  He  perils  his 
limbs  by  leaping  upon  the  platform  of  the  last  car  at  night,  after 
it  has  got  in  motion,  and  then  congratulates  himself  that  he  has 
not  lost  a  moment's  time  since  he  set  out  on  his  daily  gallop  in 
the  morning. 

His  very  diversions  smack  of  haste  and  unrest.  His  horses 
must  be  the  fastest,  his  yacht  must  outsail  his  neighbor's,  his 
great  anxiety  seems  to  be  to  get  through  his  pleasures  as  rapidly 
as  possible.  If  he  is  overpersuaded  to  snatch  a  few  weeks  from 
his  pressing  avocations,  for  travel,  he  speeds  like  a  rocket  through 
cities  rich  in  the  monuments  of  antiquity;  shoots  a  glance  at  the 
pyramids;  despatches  a  gallery  of  the  immortal  works  of  art,  as 
if  he  were  doing  it  on  a  match  against  time;  and  honors  a  cathe 
dral  which  has  been  a  thousand  years  in  building,  with  a  five 
minutes'  survey.  Then,  his  appetite  for  business  only  sharp 
ened  by  his  involuntary  abstinence  from  it,  he  hies  back  to  his 
daily  round  of  hurry  and  worry. 

If  the  chief  object  of  a  republican  form  of  government  be,  as 
it  is  defined,  to  secure  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number, 
then  the  only  discrimination  that  ought  to  be  recognized  be 
tween  the  different  occupations  of  men,  is  whether  they  are  more 
or  less  useful  to  the  majority.  Those  which  render  the  most  es 
sential  service  should  be  held  in  the  highest  honor.  The  indis 
pensable  business  of  tilling  the  soil  to  supply  the  bodily  needs, 
and  the  various  arts  for  furnishing  the  housing  and  clothing  of 
man,  should  rightfully  have  the  precedence  of  all  others;  while 
those  pursuits  which  simply  grow  out  of  the  artificial  wants, 


178  CHARLES  HENRY  BELL 

whose  purpose  is  to  supply  superfluities,  should  naturally  take 
the  lowest  place. 

And  there  are  indications  that  in  the  earlier  and  simpler  stages 
of  society,  the  useful  manual  occupations  did  receive  due  honor. 
Roger  Sherman,  the  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
began  life  as  a  shoemaker;  Nathaniel  Greene,  the  foremost  fig 
ure  of  the  Revolution  next  to  Washington,  worked  at  the  forge. 

But  modern  notions  have  made  a  wide  departure  from  the 
primitive  simplicity.  The  humble  industry  of  the  hands  is  no 
longer  respected,  for  the  paramount  reason  that  it  does  not 
promise  a  sufficiently  ready  access  to  the  coveted  goal  of  suc 
cess  in  life.  It  is  obvious  to  the  common  understanding  that 
mere  wages  for  the  longest  lifetime  would  go  but  little  way  to 
wards  making  one  a  millionaire:  and  the  times  when  men  went 
to  the  plough  for  a  military  chieftain  to  lead  their  armies  to  vic 
tory,  have  long  since  departed.  A  youth  of  spirit,  now,  scouts  the 
idea  of  chaining  himself  to  a  handicraft  for  a  livelihood.  He 
would  consider  it  a  condescension  were  he  to  use  it  as  a  stepping 
stone  to  something  more  promising.  The  only  thing  that  would 
reconcile  him  to  such  a  temporary  bondage,  would  be  an  as 
surance  that,  after  a  short  term  of  service,  he  might  emerge  from 
the  chrysalis  of  a  journeyman  into  the  full-grown  glories  of  a 
superintendent,  a  contractor,  or  a  manufacturer. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  unattractive,  even  forbidding  features 
about  the  humbler  mechanical  callings.  They  are  prosaic;  they 
are  laborious;  they  are  looked  down  upon  by  the  self -consti 
tuted  arbiters  of  society.  But  all  this  would  hardly  weigh  a 
feather  with  Young  America,  if  those  callings  only  held  out  the 
prospect  of  an  easy  grasp  of  the  prizes  of  life.  Carrying  the  hod 
is  severe  exercise  for  the  muscles;  it  is  not  work  which  fine  gentle 
men  affect;  but  let  it  once  be  understood  that  the  hod  carrier 
has  a  better  chance  than  the  rest  of  mankind  to  make  himself 
the  master  of  the  commercial  palaces  which  his  labor  contributes 
to  erect,  and  his  occupation,  toilsome,  repulsive,  servile  as  it  is, 
would  be  overflowing  with  recruits.  If  you  have  a  question  of 
this,  you  need  only  recall  the  early  times  in  California,  when  auri 
sacra  fames  was  found  potent  enough  to  draw  the  whole  pop 
ulation  to  the  mines,  and  to  reconcile  alike  members  of  the 
learned  professions,  soft-palmed  clerks,  and  children  of  luxury, 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  SUCCESS  179 

to  the  roughest  companionship,  the  fare  of  the  forecastle,  and 
the  toil  of  the  galley  slave. 

The  more  pretending  callings,  where  brain  work  counts  rather 
than  hand  work;  where  not  earnings  but  profits  are  to  be  realized, 
possess  the  greatest  attractions.  They  are  regarded  as  the  keys 
to  the  very  gates  of  success.  So  our  stalwart,  broad-shouldered 
young  fellows  with  mediocre  understandings,  neglect  the  work 
for  which  Providence  fitted  them,  in  order  to  crowd  into  places 
which  women  could  fill  better.  They  spoil  good  blacksmiths  to 
make  poor  clerks.  They  believe  they  have  thus  entered  upon 
the  highroad  to  the  realization  of  their  fondest  desires.  They 
wait  but  to  catch  a  smattering  of  knowledge  of  business  before 
they  think  themselves  competent  to  make  their  own  way;  and 
put  their  raw  incapacity  in  competition  with  the  shrewdness 
and  thorough  training  of  the  veterans  of  the  profession.  To 
such  a  contest  there  can  be  but  one  ending.  Sooner  or  later  self- 
confidence  learns  that  the  capacity  to  master  double  entry  may 
not  be  equal  to  solve  the  more  intricate  problems  of  commerce 
and  trade.  The  waters  which  looked  so  invitingly  smooth  to 
adventurous  youth,  promising  a  safe  and  pleasant  voyage  to  the 
haven  of  prosperity,  are  found  on  experiment  to  be  filled  with 
perils  that  none  but  the  skilful  and  wary  pilot  can  avoid.  And 
so  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  young  men  who  enter  mercantile  life 
in  our  cities  are  the  victims  of  their  ill-judged,  inordinate  long 
ing  to  lay  hold  on  success,  by  attempting  pursuits  for  which 
they  are  fitted  neither  by  nature  nor  by  education. 

The  reluctance  to  give  to  the  preparation  for  one's  calling  in 
life  the  time  requisite  to  a  thorough  mastery  of  its  principles 
and  its  details  is  one  of  the  marked  characteristics  of  our  coun 
try  and  our  time.  It  springs  largely  from  the  impatience  to  be 
up  and  doing  for  one's  self  —  the  feeling  that  an  unnecessary 
hour  spent  in  acquiring  a  profession  is  a  step  lost  in  one's  prog 
ress  to  profit  and  distinction.  Moreover,  no  man  in  this  country 
feels  wedded  to  his  occupation.  If  one  thing  does  not  suit,  there 
is  no  reluctance,  at  any  stage  of  life,  to  try  another.  And  it 
seems  like  sheer  waste  of  time  to  go  through  a  protracted  course 
of  preparation  for  a  business  that  may  be  abandoned  in  a  twelve 
month. 

Hence  the  fashion  of  apprenticeship  to  trades,  which  is  so 


180  CHARLES  HENRY  BELL 

rigidly  insisted  on  elsewhere,  and  was  universally  practised 
here  a  generation  or  two  ago,  has  well-nigh  gone  out  of  use.  The 
generous  bequest  of  Franklin  to  the  cities  of  his  nativity  and  of 
his  residence,  of  sums  to  be  lent  from  time  to  time  to  young  men 
who  had  served  out  a  regular  apprenticeship  to  artisans,  to 
enable  them  to  set  up  in  business  for  themselves,  has  for  a  long 
time  sought  in  vain  for  such  loans;  there  have  been,  and  are, 
no  borrowers  to  be  found  answering  the  proper  description. 
Our  legal  scribes  would  be  puzzled  now  to  draw  an  indenture 
of  apprenticeship,  the  language  of  which  was  at  the  tongue's 
end  of  their  grandfathers.  To  advise  a  lad  of  our  time  to  serve 
seven  long  years  of  his  minority  as  a  preliminary  to  becoming  the 
master  of  an  establishment,  would  be  an  unprofitable  expenditure 
of  breath.  Seven  months  would  seem  to  him  a  long  probation. 

But  what  is  the  consequence  of  this  contempt  for  the  useful 
mechanic  arts,  which  thus  relegates  them  to  the  tender  mercies 
of  the  men  who  are  left  over,  after  the  more  popular  lines  of  life 
are  filled?  The  answer  is  to  be  seen  all  about  us.  In  the  days 
of  our  grandfathers  the  smithery  and  joinery  were  gems  of  neat 
and  elegant  workmanship.  The  craftsmen  took  a  genuine  pride 
in  turning  out  perfect  wares.  By  studying  the  traditions  of  his 
art,  and  by  long  and  patient  manipulation,  he  produced  results 
which  are  the  wonder  and  despair  of  his  successors  of  to-day. 
Months  of  labor  were  sometimes  expended  on  the  wainscoting  of 
a  single  room;  weeks,  in  fitting  a  floor,  like  the  building  of  Solo 
mon's  Temple,  without  sound  of  axe  or  hammer,  but  so  accur 
ately  that  it  required  a  keen  eye  and  close  inspection  to  discern 
a  joint  or  a  seam.  In  the  colonial  days  the  houses  were  adorned 
with  articles  of  furniture  "built  upon  honor,"  as  the  expressive 
phrase  was;  which  stand  to-day,  after  a  century  has  tested  with 
heavy  hand  every  joint  and  fastening,  as  firm  and  strong  as 
on  the  day  when  they  were  cunningly  put  together. 

But  nowr  that  no  long  and  careful  training  is  considered  need 
ful  for  our  artisans,  now  that  our  ambitious  young  men  have  a 
soul  above  the  plane  and  the  anvil,  it  has  become  no  easy  task 
to  find  a  skilful  workman.  We  do  indeed  see  in  our  shops  an 
abundance  of  manufactures,  beautiful  to  the  eye,  which  simu 
late  the  work  of  former  days.  But  long  before  the  genuine  an 
tiques  shall  lose  their  comeliness  or  their  solidity,  the  glued  and 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  SUCCESS  181 

varnished  shams  of  our  present  degenerate  age  will  be  resolved 
into  their  original  materials.  Were  it  not  that  the  unsurpassed 
ingenuity  of  our  countrymen  has  invented  machinery  for  fash 
ioning  nearly  every  needed  object  in  metals,  wood,  and  leather, 
we  should  be  in  danger  of  having  all  to  become  Robinson  Crusoes, 
and  to  fit  up  our  dwellings  with  our  own  hands.  These  United 
States  present  the  strange  anomaly  of  the  most  ingenious  peo 
ple  on  earth  being  more  destitute  than  any  other  of  mechanics 
capable  of  doing  thoroughly  the  commonest  work. 

Nor  is  it  the  humbler  employments  alone  that  are  filled  by 
persons  without  adequate  qualification.  The  learned  profes 
sions  come  in  for  their  full  share,  also.  It  is  the  same  pernicious 
anxiety  to  be  making  rapid  strides  towards  success  which  gives 
us  so  large  a  proportion  of  lawyers  whose  assurance  and  incom 
petence  make  shipwreck  of  their  clients'  interests;  —  of  physi 
cians  who  prescribe  drugs  of  which  they  know  little  for  diseases 
of  which  they  know  less;  —  of  ministers  of  the  gospel  whose 
sacred  profession  alone  screens  their  ignorance  and  presumption 
from  exposure  and  indignant  reprobation. 

And  incredible  as  it  ought  to  be,  these  pretensions  have  not 
always  been  without  the  sanction  of  legal  enactments.  The 
legislature  of  our  own  State  was  once  so  blind  as  to  pass  a  law 
which  entitled  every  applicant  arrived  at  his  majority,  and 
sustaining  a  good  moral  character,  to  be  admitted  to  practise 
in  the  courts  as  an  attorney,  without  requiring  of  him  an  hour's 
previous  study.  And  even  now,  in  a  neighboring  State  it  is 
understood  that  any  man  who  chooses  to  assume  the  title  of 
"doctor,"  upon  obtaining  the  certificate  of  the  municipal  officers 
of  the  place  of  his  residence  to  his  good  moral  character,  may 
by  law  enjoy  the  same  standing  in  court  to  recover  fees  as  a 
physician,  as  the  best  educated  medical  man  in  the  land.  I  re 
joice  to  say,  however,  that  this  legislative  premium  on  ignorance 
and  incapacity  in  the  learned  professions,  has  long  since  passed  off 
the  statute  book  in  the  former  case,  and  will  undoubtedly  produce 
mischief  enough  in  due  time,  to  ensure  its  own  repeal,  in  the 
other.  A  sound  character  for  morality  so  much  relied  upon  by 
the  modern  Solons  is  indeed  an  admirable  basis  on  which  to  rear 
high  professional  attainments,  but  is  not  always  found  to  be  a 
safe  substitute  for  them. 


182  CHARLES  HENRY  BELL 

It  is  curious  to  note  how  loose  a  hold  many  men  have  upon 
the  occupations  they  profess,  in  our  country.  Because  one  has 
been  bred  to  a  particular  calling,  it  is  by  no  means  to  be  inferred 
that  he  will  make  it  his  permanent  dependence.  Change  is 
rather  to  be  expected.  And  the  mere  circumstance  that  he  has 
no  acquaintance  with  a  business,  seems  the  least  of  all  obstacles 
to  his  undertaking  it.  Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  meet 
with  one  who  has  tried  his  hand  at  half  a  dozen  vocations; 
though,  as  might  be  expected,  it  is  not  usual  to  find  that  he  has 
made  much  of  a  figure  in  any.  From  a  boyhood  spent  on  a  farm, 
the  transition  is  easy  to  a  clerkship  in  a  store,  and  then  to  the 
position  of  proprietor;  and  if  failure  ensue,  as  is  very  probable, 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  one  from  becoming  an  agent  for  life 
insurance,  or  a  vender  of  patent  medicines;  —  and  when  all 
other  shifts  for  a  livelihood  are  exhausted  there  always  remains 
the  resource  of  the  Great  West,  ready  with  capacious  maw  to 
receive  and  inwardly  digest  and  happily  assimilate  those  who 
fail  to  find  their  true  sphere  of  action  in  the  older  settlements. 

The  mischief  we  have  thus  far  been  considering,  the  products 
of  the  exaggerated  estimate  placed  by  our  people  upon  the  value 
of  success  in  life,  though  some  of  them  are  serious  enough,  are 
not  of  a  character  to  affect  the  moral  soundness  of  the  com 
munity.  We  can  submit  to  be  ridiculed  for  our  devotion  to  busi 
ness;  we  can  survive,  though  we  sadly  feel,  the  neglect  of  im 
portant  duties  which  that  devotion  occasions.  We  could  trust 
to  time  to  teach  our  young  people  more  sensible  ideas  of  the 
respectability  of  manual  labor;  as  well  as  to  demonstrate  the 
hopelessness  of  all  men  becoming  Rothschilds. 

But  there  are  consequences  far  more  serious  than  any  I  have 
mentioned,  which  have  their  origin  in  the  worship  of  success.  It 
casts  a  glamour  over  the  moral  vision.  It  has  the  effect  to  warp 
the  standard  of  judgment,  and  to  break  down  the  distinction 
between  right  and  wrong  on  the  mind.  The  tendency  is  for  men 
to  regard  everything  that  belongs  to  the  successful  as  intrinsi 
cally  proper  and  right.  It  is  a  law  of  the  human  constitution  for 
us  to  condone  whatever  is  faulty  in  those  we  admire;  and  only 
the  rigid  application  of  the  rule  of  right  will  enable  the  sternest 
moralist  to  divest  himself  of  such  partiality. 

It  is  too  much  to  expect  of  the  great  mass  of  mankind  that 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  SUCCESS  183 

they  should  exercise  so  strict  a  censorship  over  their  inclinations. 
To  them  the  man  who  has  succeeded  is  worthy  of  all  admira 
tion;  therefore  admirable  are  all  his  qualities  and  appurtenances. 
His  excellences,  viewed  through  a  magnifying  medium,  seem 
gigantic,  like  objects  looming  through  a  mountain  mist;  and 
e'en  his  failings  lean  on  virtue's  side.  Success,  like  charity, 
covers  a  multitude  of  sins. 

In  like  manner  success  lends  its  own  coloring  to  the  processes 
by  which  it  has  been  attained.  The  Jesuitical  maxim  that  the 
end  sanctifies  the  means,  applies  here  with  full  force.  The  glare 
of  the  rocket  lights  up  the  whole  pathway  that  it  has  traversed. 
The  vender  of  a  quack  nostrum,  and  the  most  learned  master 
of  the  healing  art;  the  pettifogger  of  the  criminal  courts,  and  the 
chancellor  in  his  spotless  ermine,  when  once  the  magic  doors  of 
success  have  opened  to  receive  them,  are  blended  into  a  com 
mon  category;  their  antecedents  sink  out  of  view,  and  we  for 
get  the  contrasts  of  their  past  in  the  kindred  splendors  of  their 
present. 

Worse  than  this,  callings  the  most  demoralizing  and  perni 
cious  in  their  tendency,  are  treated  with  tolerance  and  even 
clothed  with  a  fictitious  respectability,  when  they  have  con 
ducted  to  opulence  and  power.  Speculation  in  stocks  or  in 
merchandise  is  one  of  the  great  sources  of  fortune.  It  does  not 
necessarily  involve  any  moral  wrong. 

Scrupulous  men,  indeed,  might  prefer  business  which  has 
more  of  utility  and  less  of  hazard  attending  it.  But  where  one 
fairly  risks  his  property  on  chances  which  are  alike  open  to  all, 
he  cannot  be  said  to  be  dishonest.  But  the  heroes  of  the  stock 
market  and  of  the  wheat  exchange  are  not  content  to  encounter 
the  normal  risks  of  trade.  They  cog  their  dice.  They  operate 
with  resources  that  give  them  knowledge  and  power  that  others 
cannot  have.  They  extort  their  gains  from  the  necessities  which 
they  themselves  impose  upon  their  victims.  The  parties  with 
whom  they  deal  have  no  possible  chance  in  their  favor.  The 
outcome  of  the  operation  is  involved  in  no  more  uncertainty 
than  the  result  of  a  sum  in  arithmetic. 

How  much  better  is  speculation  of  this  kind  than  robbery  on 
the  highway?  Dick  Turpin,  who  plundered  travellers  on  Houn- 
slow  Heath,  expiated  his  offences  on  the  scaffold,  but  there  was 


184  CHARLES  HENRY  BELL 

a  rude  manliness  in  his  crimes.  He  met  his.  victims  on  equal 
terms;  they  bore  weapons  as  well  as  he;  he  risked  his  life  when 
he  rifled  their  purses.  But  the  dishonest  speculator  —  the  mod 
ern  highwayman  —  strips  his  victims  in  cowardly  security.  He 
is  armed  in  proof,  and  they  are  utterly  defenceless.  There  is 
neither  honesty,  manliness  nor  mercy  in  him.  If  he  confined 
his  depredations  to  his  rivals  of  the  street,  his  offence  would  be 
more  pardonable;  but  every  "corner"  that  is  made  in  shares 
or  in  merchandise,  takes  money  that  can  be  ill  spared  from  the 
pockets  of  the  indigent  —  the  widow  and  the  orphan. 

What  treatment  does  the  world  give  these  spoilers  of  the  com 
munity,  these  "honorable  men"  who  fatten  on  the  misfortunes 
of  others?  Does  society  shut  its  doors  in  their  faces?  Do  people 
treat  them  as  outlaws  —  refuse  to  deal  with  them  or  to  recog 
nize  them?  Far  from  it.  Their  magnificent  dinners  are  eaten 
by  the  elite  of  the  land;  men  of  character  doff  their  hats  when 
they  meet  them  in  the  street;  the  religious  world  accept  the 
churches  they  build  and  the  theological  foundations  they  en 
dow,  and  utter  no  lisp  of  disapproval.  Is  it  any  wonder,  then, 
that  the  great  bulk  of  the  community,  witnessing  the  cordial 
recognition  extended  to  these  freebooters  by  those  who  should 
be  the  arbiters  of  morals,  forget  the  flagrancy  of  their  conduct, 
and  learn  to  practise  that  all-too-easy  lesson,  that  everything  is 
to  be  forgiven  to  success. 

No  offence  committed  by  man  is  more  sordid,  and  admits  of 
less  palliation  than  that  of  ministering,  for  the  sake  of  gain,  to 
another's  appetite  for  strong  drink.  The  sharper  deprives  us 
of  our  property  only;  the  seller  of  intoxicating  liquor  takes  prop 
erty,  and  health,  and  character;  everything  that  man  should 
hold  most  dear.  He  turns  robust  health  into  premature  old  age; 
he  reduces  industry  and  capacity  to  idleness  and  beggary;  he 
changes  man,  created  in  the  image  of  his  Maker,  into  a  brute, 
with  but  a  single  instinct  remaining.  How  can  we  regard  one 
who  works  such  havoc  with  fair  humanity  but  with  loathing 
unutterable? 

Yet  it  is  not  upon  the  poor  degraded  wretches  who  with  their 
own  hands  serve  the  waters  of  destruction  to  the  victims  of  an 
unquenchable  thirst,  for  a  few  pitiful  coppers,  that  the  woes  and 
crimes  of  intemperance  must  rest.  They  are  irresponsible  un- 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  SUCCESS  185 

derlings,  who  know  no  better.  We  must  go  to  the  fountain  head 
of  the  iniquity  —  to  the  men  who  produce,  and  the  men  who 
dispense  by  wholesale,  the  supplies  which  make  willing  captives 
of  the  bodies  and  souls  of  the  multitude  of  human  beings,  who 
but  for  that  might  lead  lives  of  usefulness  and  respectability. 
These  wholesale  sinners  have  not  the  excuse  of  the  others;  they 
do  know  better.  Their  business  demands  of  them  superior  in 
telligence  and  capacity,  and  they  possess  them.  It  is  they  who 
are  to  be  held  accountable  for  all  that  they  do,  by  their  own  or 
by  others'  hands,  to  destroy  the  health,  paralyze  the  will,  ob 
scure  the  reason,  deaden  the  moral  sense  of  their  fellow-crea 
tures,  and  send  them  to  a  death  which  has  no  solitary  ray  of 
consolation. 

Woe  to  him  that  giveth  his  neighbor  drink,  said  a  wise  man  of 
old.  But  what  says  modern  society?  If  the  ruinous  draft  is  only 
dealt  out  in  barrels  instead  of  glasses,  —  if  it  brings  in  returns 
of  tens  of  thousands  of  dollars,  instead  of  paltry  dimes,  then  the 
character  of  the  act  is  changed.  The  manufacturers  and  dealers 
on  a  great  scale  are  not  to  be  put  on  a  par  with  bar-tenders  and 
saloon-keepers.  They  are  successful;  therefore  though  their 
victims  are  numbered  by  thousands,  though  they  have  filled 
the  land  with  mourning,  they  have  the  odor  of  respectability, 
and  their  names  are  not  to  be  uttered  save  with  due  regard 
and  honor. 

I  need  not  dwell  upon  other  ways  in  wrhich  the  public  con 
science  is  debauched  by  the  deference  which  men  pay  to  suc 
cessful  violators  of  the  moral  and  the  civil  code.  The  great  power 
aggregated  in  corporate  enterprises  has  encouraged  bold  and 
unscrupulous  officials  to  do  with  impunity,  and  even  with  eclat, 
deeds  which  honor  and  honesty  blush  at.  The  temptations  of 
political  advancement  have  lured  others  to  acts  of  corruption 
in  our  times,  which  shame  the  days  of  Walpole.  But  however 
much  men  would  shrink  from  the  acts,  they  rarely  shrink  from 
the  doers  of  them.  They  hold  their  heads  among  the  foremost, 
for  their  ventures,  though  hazardous  and  unlawful,  were  suc 
cessful.  In  short,  the  motto  "Success  is  the  test  of  merit,"  if 
not  openly  proclaimed,  is  practically  acted  on  in  the  community. 
But  enticing  as  it  is  to  the  youthful  ear,  it  is  fatally  misleading. 
In  truth  success  is  not  even  the  test  of  capacity.  There  are  so 


186  CHARLES  HENRY  BELL 

many  contingencies  which  prevent  the  ablest  from  reaching  the 
places  of  their  aspirations;  so  many  cases  where  the  strong  de 
cline  to  enter  the  lists  for  the  life's  prizes,  and  content  themselves 
with  the  honorable  private  station,  without  a  wish  to  figure  upon 
the  broader  stage,  —  so  large  a  proportion  of  instances  in  which 
mere  shallowness  and  audacity  have  been  flung  into  prominence, 
like  scum  rising  to  the  surface  of  the  boiling  cauldron,  that  it 
cannot  be  contended  for  a  moment  that  success  and  ability  go 
hand  in  hand.  The  battle  of  American  life  is  assuredly  not  al 
ways  to  the  strong. 

Still  less  does  success  imply  merit.  A  glance  over  the  country 
will  convince  the  most  skeptical  that  there  is  a  greater  propor 
tion  of  the  disciples  of  James  Fisk  the  lawless,  than  of  Peter 
Cooper  the  philanthropist,  in  the  ranks  of  the  successful.  It 
is  hard  for  the  multitude  to  conceive  that  the  men  whose  lives 
are  popularly  denominated  failures,  are  often  entitled  to  more 
credit  than  the  majority  of  the  successful.  A  man  of  education 
and  mental  force  chooses  to  make  his  home  in  a  remote  country 
village;  with  powers  that  would  place  him  among  the  notables 
of  the  metropolis,  and  win  him  distinction  not  limited  to  a 
single  hemisphere,  he  yet  prefers  to  concentrate  his  interests  and 
his  life  labors  on  the  community  in  which  he  dwells.  Content 
with  little,  with  few  anxieties,  he  can  bestow  all  the  treasures  of 
his  mind  and  heart  upon  the  narrow  circle  to  which  he  is  a 
teacher  and  an  exemplar.  Instead  of  startling  the  world  with 
the  erratic  and  useless  brilliancy  of  a  meteor,  his  course  is  a 
steady  light,  which  guides  those  within  the  sphere  of  its  illumi 
nation  to  wisdom  and  contentment. 

Such  a  life  was  that  of  the  brother  of  Thomas  Hughes,  a 
learned  scholar,  an  accomplished  gentleman,  a  genuine  philan 
thropist.  He  devoted  himself  to  the  improvement  of  the  hum 
ble  folk  about  him,  and  his  beneficent  influence  will  be  felt  for 
generations  to  come.  In  the  superficial,  worldly  sense  he  was 
not  successful,  for  he  gained  none  of  the  rewards  that  most  men 
prize  and  strive  for.  But  measured  by  the  higher  standard,  how 
beautiful,  how  wholesome,  how  useful  a  career  was  his!  How 
marked  a  contrast  it  presents  to  the  troubled  and  fevered  ex 
istence  of  the  seeker  after  success;  who,  blind  to  the  rich  pos 
sibilities  which  Providence  has  placed  within  his  reach,  strains 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  SUCCESS  187, 

his  vision  to  behold  distant  glories,  which  may  never  be  his,  and 
even  if  attained,  yield  no  substantial  satisfaction.  Far  be  it 
from  me  to  utter  one  word  in  disparagement  of  a  proper  ambi 
tion.  It  is  the  force  that  keeps  the  world  from  stagnating.  It 
has  created  the  foremost  names  in  science,  in  literature,  and  in 
art.  It  has  promoted  all  the  great  movements  for  the  advance 
ment  of  the  human  race.  Without  its  elevating  power  it  might 
almost  be  said  that  man  would  still  be  a  dweller  in  caves,  a  com 
panion  of  the  brutes.  Ambition  has  helped  forward  many  a 
grand  and  noble  work,  but  it  has  also  done  foul  injury  and  wrong. 
It  has  led  to  wars,  wasteful  destruction  of  property  and  wanton, 
wicked  expenditure  of  life;  to  duplicity,  intrigue,  and  falsehood; 
to  the  imprisonment  and  execution  of  some  of  the  noblest  of 
God's  creatures,  and  to  the  elevation  to  places  of  power  of  some 
of  the  meanest  and  most  worthless. 

There  are  ambitions  noble,  and  ambitions  ignoble.  And  while 
the  passion  for  merely  heaping  up  money,  and  for  acquiring 
power  to  be  wielded  for  selfish  ends,  is  unworthy  of  a  reasonable 
creature,  the  resolute  desire  to  be  useful  and  to  leave  the  world 
better  than  we  found  it,  is  a  duty.  It  may  lead  to  high  stations, 
commanding  a  wide  influence,  with  labors  and  responsibilities 
proportionally  extended;  or  it  may  carry  one  into  a  quiet  eddy 
in  life's  stream,  where  he  is  free  from  the  whirl  and  rush  of  the 
mighty  current.  One's  duty  may  be  as  fully  and  as  usefully  per 
formed  in  the  one  position  as  in  the  other.  The  business  of  the 
world  is  to  be  carried  on  by  many  hands.  We  must  have  our 
leaders  of  tens  as  well  as  our  leaders  of  thousands;  nay,  we  need 
them  more,  and  more  of  them. 

I  have  thus  pointed  out  certain  ills  which  are  traceable  more 
or  less  directly  to  success-worship  in  our  land.  Some  of  them  are 
trivial,  but  yet  were  better  dispensed  with;  others  are  mischiev 
ous,  and  ought  to  be  extirpated  with  unsparing  hand.  It  would 
be  a  consolation  if  we  could  feel  that  they  were  mending  with 
time,  but  each  succeeding  year  seems  rather  to  add  to  their 
growth,  and  they  were  never  more  extended  or  fuller  of  evil 
portent  than  now.  The  public  perception  has  become  so  warped 
and  obscured  by  indulgence  in  this  national  foible,  that  like  a 
faulty  glass  it  distorts  the  objects  seen  through  it,  quite  out  of 
their  true  proportions.  Petty  matters  occupy  the  whole  field 


188  CHARLES  HENRY  BELL 

of  vision  to  the  exclusion  of  those  of  real  moment.  Things  of 
evil  repute  seem  clothed  in  the  garb  of  honesty  and  respecta 
bility. 

The  need  of  some  countervailing  agency  is  urgent.  The  im 
portance  of  curing  this  epidemic  of  moral  astigmatism  cannot 
be  overestimated.  The  illusions  which  have  taken  possession  of 
our  countrymen  must  be  dispelled,  and  the  problem  of  life  must 
be  studied  from  a  fresh  standpoint,  so  that  its  condition  and 
possibilities  shall  assume  their  true  relations.  So  long  as  success 
is  the  highest  ideal  which  is  recognized,  men  will  value  and  seek 
it  as  the  greatest  good.  Convince  them  that  there  are  better  and 
worthier  objects  to  strive  for,  and  you  have  gained  the  first 
step  towards  forcing  them  from  their  hallucination.  And  when 
success  shall  lose  its  hold  on  their  ambition,  it  will  cease  to  mis 
lead  their  moral  judgment.  Under  the  shadow  of  the  walls  of 
this  venerable  seat  of  learning  we  cannot  hesitate  whither  we 
are  to  turn  for  the  sorely  needed  help. 

There  is  a  class  of  society  whose  training  and  attainments 
peculiarly  fit  them  to  work  out  this  great  deliverance.  I  refer 
of  course  to  the  educated  class,  to  so  many  of  whom  I  have  the 
honor  to  address  myself  to-day.  It  is  to  you  that  your  less 
favored  countrymen  naturally  and  rightfully  turn  for  direction 
and  guidance.  None  others  are  so  capable  as  you  to  undertake 
the  needed  reform  of  public  opinion.  Your  studies  and  mental 
poise  and  discipline  have  freed  you  from  the  popular  proclivity 
to  overvalue  the  objects  of  a  sordid  ambition,  and  have  qualified 
you  to  weigh  in  impartial  scales  the  worth  of  the  various  ends 
for  which  lives  are  spent;  and  from  your  lips  instruction  and 
argument  fall  with  double  weight. 

Teach  your  countrymen  by  your  precept  and  example  that 
while  industry  and  attention  to  affairs  are  commendable,  yet 
it  is  a  poor  and  profitless  existence  which  sacrifices  all  public 
duties,  all  culture,  all  social  delights  to  the  worship  of  mammon. 
The  well-balanced  life  must  embrace  the  whole  round  of  human 
interests,  responsibilities,  gratifications.  To  pass  through  a 
world  full  of  noble  employments  and  rational  pleasures  without 
partaking  of  them  or  even  being  sensible  of  their  existence,  were 
punishment  worse  than  the  fabled  tantalization  of  the  nether 
sphere. 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  SUCCESS  189 

The  dignity  of  all  honest  labor  is  a  lesson  specially  worthy  of 
being  impressed  on  the  popular  mind.  A  false  pride  induces  our 
youth  to  look  down  on  the  plough  and  the  work-shop.  But  there 
was  more  true  elevation  and  respectability  in  the  occupation 
of  Elihu  Burritt,  blacksmith  and  linguist,  than  in  the  grovelling 
pursuit  of  success  in  which  a  horde  of  those  who  esteem  them 
selves  far  above  his  level,  are  wasting  life's  golden  opportunities, 
and  squandering  the  powers  that  ought  to  be  applied  to  better 
purposes.  We  need  muscle  in  this  world  not  less  than  we  need 
brains.  The  arm  to  execute  is  fully  as  important  a  factor  in 
modern  civilization  as  the  head  to  contrive.  Neither  can  dis 
pense  with  the  help  of  the  other;  neither  has  the  right  to  claim 
the  precedence  of  the  other.  They  are  twin  forces,  indispens 
able  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  growing  demands  of  progres 
sive  humanity.  Alike  but  different,  side  by  side  they  march  in 
the  van  of  all  that  serves,  and  beautifies,  and  ennobles  the  life 
of  man;  and  so  they  deserve  to  be  held  in  equal  honor. 

It  is  not  the  sphere  of  one's  work,  but  the  work  one  does  in 
his  sphere,  that  determines  his  rank  as  a  benefactor  of  the  world. 
Act  well  your  part;  there  all  the  honor  lies.  When  a  high  officer 
in  a  neighboring  State  was  reproached  with  having  been  a  drum 
mer  boy,  —  "And  didn't  I  drum  well?"  was  his  answer.  If  he 
did  his  duty  in  his  station,  no  matter  how  humble  the  station 
was. 

And  to  do  one's  duty  there  must  be  preparation.  Not  often 
do  men  enter  a  profession  armed  cap-a-pie  for  its  conflicts  as 
Minerva  sprang  from  the  head  of  Jove.  Patrick  Henry  indeed, 
though  never  a  student,  is  said  to  have  produced  a  maiden 
speech  worthy  of  a  veteran  orator;  but  nature  yields  but  one 
Patrick  Henry  in  a  generation.  Ordinary  persons  must  have 
schooling.  We  should  see  better  work  done  in  every  depart 
ment  of  industry,  physical  and  intellectual,  if  a  thorough  train 
ing  were  held  indispensable  to  the  privilege  of  practising  each 
trade  and  profession. 

The  educated  class  are  under  a  special  responsibility  in  rela 
tion  to  the  moral  influence  exerted  by  successful  men.  If  it  were 
not  that  the  occupants  of  leading  positions  in  the  community 
set  the  example  of  shutting  their  eyes  to  the  sins  of  success,  the 
great  body  of  the  people  would  not  be  so  blind  to  them.  You 


190  CHARLES  HENRY  BELL 

who  know  the  wrong  and  yet  the  wrong  pursue,  cannot  wonder 
that  those  with  less  discrimination  and  feebler  judgment  should 
confound  the  wrong  with  the  right.  Let  your  teachings  be  un 
mistakable  that  no  witchery  of  success  can  change  the  essential 
nature  of  things;  that  a  knave  is  no  less  a  knave  though  on  the 
acme  of  prosperity,  and  an  honest  man  is  worthy  of  all  respect 
though  poverty  be  his  sole  possession;  that  no  wealth  or  place 
can  gild  a  bad  character  or  a  vile  action. 

Make  the  same  distinction  in  your  public  speech  and  de 
meanor,  that  you  cannot  fail  to  make  in  your  private  con 
science.  If  you  set  the  example  of  honest  dealing  in  your  charac 
terization  of  others,  you  will  be  at  no  loss  for  followers :  thank 
God,  there  is  never  any  lack  of  volunteers  in  our  country,  when 
a  manly  or  a  courageous  act  is  to  be  done. 

What  a  radical  readjustment  of  society  would  be  presented  if 
each  true  leader  of  public  sentiment  were  to  shape  his  conduct 
towards  the  usurpers  of  the  uppermost  places,  in  conformity 
with  his  inward  convictions!  How  many  a  self-sufficient  no 
body,  lifted  by  a  caprice  of  fortune  into  factious  importance, 
would  subside  into  his  native  insignificance;  how  many  a  man 
of  goodly  seeming,  but  a  knave  at  heart,  would  be  cast  down 
from  the  pedestal  which  success  has  reared  for  him,  and  would 
resume  his  proper  place  among  paltry  scoundrels!  Pretension, 
meanness,  dishonesty,  would  then  be  stripped  of  their  borrowed 
plumage,  and  stand  before  mankind  in  their  naked  deformity. 
The  Tweeds  would  be  seen  in  their  true  colors  in  the  palmy  days 
of  their  triumph,  exactly  as  in  the  retributive  hour  when  justice 
clothes  them  in  the  felon's  garb. 

Character  would  then  resume  its  legitimate  ascendency  in 
the  estimation  of  men  —  success  would  cease  to  cast  its  baleful 
spell  over  the  understanding  of  our  people;  and  American  so 
ciety,  regenerated,  purified,  and  elevated,  would  justify  the 
proudest  anticipations  of  the  founders  of  the  model  republic. 

Educated  men  and  women !  If  this  country  is  to  be  freed  from 
false  pride,  freed  from  ignorant  pretensions  and  unworthy  am 
bitions,  freed  from  the  moral  obliquity  that  springs  from  the 
Worship  of  Success,  it  is  your  duty,  and  it  will  be  your  glory, 
to  accomplish  its  enfranchisement. 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC 

BY   WENDELL   PHILLIPS 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Massachusetts,  at  Harvard  College, 
June  30,  1881. 

A  HUNDRED  years  ago  our  society  was  planted  —  a  slip  from 
the  older  root  in  Virginia.  The  parent  seed,  tradition  says,  was 
French,  —  part  of  that  conspiracy  for  free  speech  whose  leaders 
prated  democracy  in  the  salons,  while  they  carefully  held  on  to 
the  flesh-pots  of  society  by  crouching  low  to  kings  and  their 
mistresses,  and  whose  final  object  of  assault  was  Christianity 
itself.  Voltaire  gave  the  watchword,  — 

"Crush  the  wretch." 

"Ecrasez  Vinfame" 

No  matter  how  much  or  how  little  truth  there  may  be  in  the 
tradition :  no  matter  what  was  the  origin  or  what  was  the  object 
of  our  society,  if  it  had  any  special  one,  both  are  long  since  for 
gotten.  We  stand  now  simply  a  representative  of  free,  brave, 
American  scholarship.  I  emphasize  American  scholarship. 

In  one  of  those  glowing,  and  as  yet  unequalled  pictures  which 
Everett  drew  for  us,  here  and  elsewhere,  of  Revolutionary  scenes, 
I  remember  his  saying,  that  the  independence  we  then  won,  if 
taken  in  its  literal  and  narrow  sense,  was  of  no  interest  and  little 
value;  but,  construed  in  the  fulness  of  its  real  meaning,  it  bound 
us  to  a  distinctive  American  character  and  purpose,  to  a  keen 
sense  of  large  responsibility,  and  to  a  generous  self-devotion.  It 
is  under  the  shadow  of  such  unquestioned  authority  that  I  use 
the  term  "American  scholarship." 

Our  society  was,  no  doubt,  to  some  extent,  a  protest  against 
the  sombre  theology  of  New  England,  where,  a  hundred  years 
ago,  the  atmosphere  was  black  with  sermons,  and  where  religious 
speculation  beat  uselessly  against  the  narrowest  limits.' 

The  first  generation  of  Puritans  —  though  Lowell  does  let 
Cromwell  call  them  "a  small  colony  of  pinched  fanatics"  —  in 
cluded  some  men,  indeed  not  a  few,  worthy  to  walk  close  to 


192  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

Roger  Williams  and  Sir  Harry  Vane,  the  two  men  deepest  in 
thought  and  bravest  in  speech  of  all  who  spoke  English  in  their 
day,  and  equal  to  any  in  practical  statesmanship.  Sir  Harry 
Vane  was  in  my  judgment  the  noblest  human  being  who  ever 
walked  the  streets  of  yonder  city  —  I  do  not  forget  Franklin  or 
Sam  Adams,  Washington  or  Fayette,  Garrison  or  John  Brown. 
But  Vane  dwells  an  arrow's  flight  above  them  all,  and  his  touch 
consecrated  the  continent  to  measureless  toleration  of  opinion 
and  entire  equality  of  rights.  We  are  told  we  can  find  in  Plato 
"all  the  intellectual  life  of  Europe  for  two  thousand  years":  so 
you  can  find  in  Vane  the  pure  gold  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  American  civilization,  with  no  particle  of  its  dross. 
Plato  would  have  welcomed  him  to  the  Academy,  and  Fenelon 
kneeled  with  him  at  the  altar.  He  made  Somers  and  John  Mar 
shall  possible;  like  Carnot,  he  organized  victory;  and  Milton 
pales  before  him  in  the  stainlessness  of  his  record.  He  stands 
among  English  statesmen  preeminently  the  representative,  in 
practice  and  in  theory,  of  serene  faith  in  the  safety  of  trusting 
truth  wholly  to  her  own  defence.  For  other  men  we  walk  back 
ward,  and  throw  over  their  memories  the  mantle  of  charity  and 
excuse,  saying  reverently,  ''Remember  the  temptation  and  the 
age."  But  Vane's  ermine  has  no  stain;  no  act  of  his  needs 
explanation  or  apology;  and  in  thought  he  stands  abreast  of  our 
age,  —  like  pure  intellect,  belongs  to  all  time. 

Carlyle  said,  in  years  when  his  words  were  worth  heeding, 
"Young  men,  close  your  Byron,  and  open  your  Goethe."  If 
my  counsel  had  weight  in  these  halls,  I  should  say,  "Young 
men,  close  your  John  Winthrop  and  Washington,  your  Jefferson 
and  Webster,  and  open  Sir  Harry  Vane."  The  generation  that 
knew  Vane  gave  to  our  Alma  Mater  for  a  seal  the  simple  pledge, 
—  Veritas. 

But  the  narrowness  and  poverty  of  colonial  life  soon  starved 
out  this  element.  Harvard  was  rededicated  Christo  et  Ecclesiae; 
and,  up  to  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  free  thought  in  religion 
meant  Charles  Chauncy  and  the  Brattle  Street  Church  protest, 
while  free  thought  hardly  existed  anywhere  else.  But  a  single 
generation  changed  all  this.  A  hundred  years  ago  there  were 
pulpits  that  led  the  popular  movement;  while  outside  of  religion 
and  of  what  called  itself  literature,  industry  and  a  jealous  sense 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  193 

of  personal  freedom  obeyed,  in  their  rapid  growth,  the  law  of 
their  natures.  English  common  sense  and  those  municipal  insti 
tutions  born  of  the  common  law,  and  which  had  saved  and  shel 
tered  it,  grew  inevitably  too  large  for  the  eggshell  of  English 
dependence,  and  allowed  it  to  drop  off  as  naturally  as  the  chick 
does  when  she  is  ready.  There  was  no  change  of  law,  —  nothing 
that  could  properly  be  called  revolution,  —  only  noiseless 
growth,  the  seed  bursting  into  flower,  infancy  becoming  man 
hood.  It  was  life,  in  its  omnipotence,  rending  whatever  dead 
matter  confined  it.  So  have  I  seen  the  tiny  weeds  of  a  luxuriant 
Italian  spring  upheave  the  colossal  foundations  of  the  Caesars' 
palace,  and  leave  it  a  mass  of  ruins. 

But  when  the  veil  was  withdrawn,  what  stood  revealed  aston 
ished  the  world.  It  showed  the  undreamt  power,  the  serene 
strength,  of  simple  manhood,  free  from  the  burden  and  restraint 
of  absurd  institutions  in  Church  and  State.  The  grandeur  of 
this  new  Western  constellation  gave  courage  to  Europe,  result 
ing  in  the  French  Revolution,  the  greatest,  the  most  unmixed, 
the  most  unstained  and  wholly  perfect  blessing  Europe  has  had 
in  modern  times,  unless  we  may  possibly  except  the  Reforma 
tion,  and  the  invention  of  printing. 

What  precise  effect  that  giant  wave  had  when  it  struck  our 
shore  we  can  only  guess.  History  is,  for  the  most  part,  an  idle 
amusement,  the  day-dream  of  pedants  and  triflers.  The  details 
of  events,  the  actors'  motives,  and  their  relation  to  each  other, 
are  buried  with  them.  How  impossible  to  learn  the  exact  truth 
of  what  took  place  yesterday  under  your  next  neighbor's  roof! 
Yet  we  complacently  argue  and  speculate  about  matters  a 
thousand  miles  off,  and  a  thousand  years  ago,  as  if  we  knew 
them.  When  I  was  a  student  here,  my  favorite  study  was  his 
tory.  The  world  and  affairs  have  shown  me  that  one  half  of 
history  is  loose  conjecture,  and  much  of  the  rest  is  the  writer's 
opinion.  But  most  men  see  facts,  not  with  their  eyes,  but  with 
their  prejudices.  Any  one  familiar  with  courts  will  testify  how 
rare  it  is  for' an  honest  man  to  give  a  perfectly  correct  account  of 
a  transaction.  We  are  tempted  to  see  facts  as  we  think  they 
ought  to  be,  or  wish  they  were.  And  yet  journals  are  the  favor 
ite  original  sources  of  history.  Tremble,  my  good  friend,  if 
your  sixpenny -neighbor  keeps  a  journal.  "It  adds  a  new  terror 


194  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

to  death."  You  shall  go  down  to  your  children  not  in  your  fair 
lineaments  and  proportions,  but  with  the  smirks,  elbows,  and 
angles  he  sees  you  with.  Journals  are  excellent  to  record  the 
depth  of  the  last  snow  and  the  date  when  the  Mayflower  opens; 
but  when  you  come  to  men's  motives  and  characters,  journals 
are  the  magnets  that  get  near  the  chronometer  of  history  and 
make  all  its  records  worthless.  You  can  count  on  the  fingers  of 
your  two  hands  all  the  robust  minds  that  ever  kept  journals. 
Only  milksops  and  fribbles  indulge  in  that  amusement,  except 
now  and  then  a  respectable  mediocrity.  One  such  journal  night 
mares  New  England  annals,  emptied  into  history  by  respectable 
middle-aged  gentlemen,  who  fancy  that  narrowness  and  spleen, 
like  poor  wine,  mellow  into  truth  when  they  get  to  be  a  century 
old.  But  you  might  as  well  cite  the  Daily  Advertiser  of  1850 
as  authority  on  one  of  Garrison's  actions. 

And,  after  all,  of  what  value  are  these  minutiae?  Whether 
Luther's  zeal  was  partly  kindled  by  lack  of  gain  from  the  sale  of 
indulgences,  whether  Boston  rebels  were  half  smugglers  and 
half  patriots,  what  matters  it  now?  Enough  that  he  meant  to 
wrench  the  gag  from  Europe's  lips,  and  that  they  were  content 
to  suffer  keenly,  that  we  might  have  an  untrammelled  career. 
We  can  only  hope  to  discover  the  great  currents  and  massive 
forces  which  have  shaped  our  lives:  all  else  is  trying  to  solve  a 
problem  of  whose  elements  we  know  nothing.  As  the  poet  his 
torian  of  the  last  generation  says  so  plaintively,  "History  comes 
like  a  beggarly  gleaner  in  the  field,  after  Death,  the  great  lord 
of  the  domain,  has  gathered  the  harvest,  and  lodged  it  in  his 
garner,  which  no  man  may  open." 

But  we  may  safely  infer  that  French  debate  and  experience 
broadened  and  encouraged  our  fathers.  To  that  we  undoubtedly 
owe,  in  some  degree,  the  theoretical  perfection,  ingrafted  on 
English  practical  sense  and  old  forms,  which  marks  the  founda 
tion  of  our  republic.  English  civil  life,  up  to  that  time,  grew 
largely  out  of  custom,  rested  almost  wholly  on  precedent.  For 
our  model  there  was  no  authority  in  the  record,  no  precedent  on 
the  file;  unless  you  find  it,  perhaps,  partially,  in  that  Long  Par 
liament  bill  with  which  Sir  Harry  Vane  would  have  outgener- 
alled  Cromwell,  if  the  shameless  soldier  had  not  crushed  it  with 
his  muskets. 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  195 

Standing  on  Saxon  foundations,  and  inspired,  perhaps,  in 
some  degree,  by  Latin  example,  we  have  done  what  no  race,  no 
nation,  no  age,  had  before  dared  even  to  try.  We  have  founded 
a  republic  on  the  unlimited  suffrage  of  the  millions.  We  have 
actually  worked  out  the  problem  that  man,  as  God  created  him, 
may  be  trusted  with  self-government.  We  have  shown  the 
world  that  a  church  without  a  bishop,  and  a  state  without  a 
king,  is  an  actual,  real,  every-day  possibility.  Look  back  over 
the  history  of  the  race:  where  will  you  find  a  chapter  that  pre 
cedes  us  in  that  achievement?  Greece  had  her  republics,  but 
they  were  the  republics  of  a  few  freemen  and  subjects  and  many 
slaves;  and  "the  battle  of  Marathon  was  fought  by  slaves,  un 
chained  from  the  doorposts  of  their  masters'  houses."  Italy  had 
her  republics:  they  were  the  republics  of  wealth  and  skill  and 
family,  limited  and  aristocratic.  The  Swiss  republics  were 
groups  of  cousins.  Holland  had  her  republic,  —  a  republic  of 
guilds  and  landholders,  trusting  the  helm  of  state  to  property 
and  education.  And  all  these,  which,  at  their  best,  held  but  a 
million  or  two  within  their  narrow  limits,  have  gone  down  in 
the  ocean  of  time. 

A  hundred  years  ago  our  fathers  announced  this  sublime, 
and,  as  it  seemed  then,  foolhardy  declaration,  that  God  intended 
all  men  to  be  free  and  equal,  —  all  men,  without  restriction, 
without  qualification,  without  limit.  A  hundred  years  have 
rolled  away  since  that  venturous  declaration;  and  to-day,  with  a 
territory  that  joins  ocean  to  ocean,  with  fifty  millions  of  people, 
with  two  wars  behind  her,  with  the  grand  achievement  of  having 
grappled  with  the  fearful  disease  that  threatened  her  central  Me, 
and  broken  four  millions  of  fetters,  the  great  republic,  stronger 
than  ever,  launches  into  the  second  century  of  her  existence. 
The  history  of  the  world  has  no  such  chapter  in  its  breadth,  its 
depth,  its  significance,  or  its  bearing  on  future  history. 

Wrhat  Wycliffe  did  for  religion,  Jefferson  and  Sam  Adams  did 
for  the  state,  —  they  trusted  it  to  the  people.  He  gave  the  masses 
the  Bible,  the  right  to  think.  Jefferson  and  Sam  Adams  gave 
them  the  ballot,  the  right  to  rule.  His  intrepid  advance  con 
templated  theirs^as  its  natural,  inevitable  result.  Their  serene 
faith  completed  the  gift  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  makes  to 
humanity.  We  have  not  only  established  a  new  measure  of  the 


196  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

possibilities  of  the  race:  we  have  laid  on  strength,  wisdom,  and 
skill  a  new  responsibility.  Grant  that  each  man's  relations  to 
God  and  his  neighbor  are  exclusively  his  own  concern,  and  that 
he  is  entitled  to  all  the  aid  that  will  make  him  the  best  judge  of 
these  relations;  that  the  people  are  the  source  of  all  power,  and 
their  measureless  capacity  the  lever  of  all  progress;  their  sense 
of  right  the  court  of  final  appeal  in  civil  affairs;  the  institutions 
they  create  the  only  ones  any  power  has  a  right  to  impose;  that 
the  attempt  of  one  class  to  prescribe  the  law,  the  religion,  the 
morals,  or  the  trade  of  another  is  both  unjust  and  harmful,  — 
and  the  Wycliffe  and  Jefferson  of  history  mean  this  if  they  mean 
anything,  —  then,  when,  in  1867,  Parliament  doubled  the  Eng 
lish  franchise,  Robert  Lowe  was  right  in  affirming,  amid  the 
cheers  of  the  House,  "Now  the  first  interest  and  duty  of  every 
Englishman  is  to  educate  the  masses  —  our  masters."  Then, 
whoever  sees  farther  than  his  neighbor  is  that  neighbor's  servant 
to  lift  him  to  such  higher  level.  Then,  power,  ability,  influence, 
character,  virtue,  are  only  trusts  with  which  to  serve  our  time. 

We  all  agree  in  the  duty  of  scholars  to  help  those  less  favored 
in  life,  and  that  this  duty  of  scholars  to  educate  the  mass  is  still 
more  imperative  in  a  republic,  since  a  republic  trusts  the  state 
wholly  to  the  intelligence  and  moral  sense  of  the  people.  The 
experience  of  the  last  forty  years  shows  every  man  that  law  has 
no  atom  of  strength,  either  in  Boston  or  New  Orleans,  unless, 
and  only  so  far  as,  public  opinion  indorses  it,  and  that  your  life, 
goods,  and  good  name  rest  on  the  moral  sense,  self-respect,  and 
law-abiding  mood  of  the  men  that  walk  the  streets,  and  hardly 
a  whit  on  the  provisions  of  the  statute-book.  Come,  any  one  of 
you,  outside  of  the  ranks  of  popular  men,  and  you  will  not  fail 
to  find  it  so.  Easy  men  dream  that  we  live  under  a  government 
of  law.  Absurd  mistake!  we  live  under  a  government  of  men 
and  newspapers.  Your  first  attempt  to  stem  dominant  and 
keenly-cherished  opinions  will  reveal  this  to  you. 

But  what  is  education?  Of  course  it  is  not  book-learning. 
Book-learning  does  not  make  five  per  cent  of  that  mass  of  com 
mon  sense  that  "  runs"  the  world,  transacts  its  business,  secures 
its  progress,  trebles  its  power  over  nature,  works  out  in  the  long 
run  a  rough  average  justice,  wears  away  the  world's  restraints, 
and  lifts  off  its  burdens.  The  ideal  Yankee,  wrho  "has  more 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  197 

brains  in  his  hand  than  others  have  in  their  skulls,'*  is  not  a 
scholar;  and  two-thirds  of  the  inventions  that  enable  France  to 
double  the  world's  sunshine,  and  make  Old  and  New  England 
the  workshops  of  the  world,  did  not  come  from  colleges  or  from 
minds  trained  in  the  schools  of  science,  but  struggled  up,  forcing 
their  way  against  giant  obstacles,  from  the  irrepressible  instinct 
of  untrained  natural  power.  Her  workshops,  not  her  colleges, 
made  England,  for  a  while,  the  mistress  of  the  world;  and  the 
hardest  job  her  workman  had  was  to  make  Oxford  willing  he 
should  work  his  wonders. 

• So  of  moral  gains.  As  shrewd  an  observer  as  Governor  Marcy 
of  New  York  often  said  he  cared  nothing  for  the  whole  press  of 
the  seaboard,  representing  wealth  and  education  (he  meant 
book-learning),  if  it  set  itself  against  the  instincts  of  the  people. 
Lord  Brougham,  in  a  remarkable  comment  on  the  life  of  Romilly, 
enlarges  on  the  fact  that  the  great  reformer  of  the  penal  law 
found  all  the  legislative  and  all  the  judicial  power  of  England, 
its  colleges  and  its  bar,  marshalled  against  him,  and  owed  his 
success,  as  all  such  reforms  do,  says  his  lordship,  to  public  meet 
ings  and  popular  instinct.  It  would  be  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  government  itself  began  in  usurpation,  in  the  feudalism  of 
the  soldier  and  the  bigotry  of  the  priest;  that  liberty  and  civili 
zation  are  only  fragments  of  rights  wrung  from  the  strong  hands 
of  wealth  and  book-learning.  Almost  all  the  great  truths  relating 
to  society  were  not  the  result  of  scholarly  meditation,  ''hiving 
up  wisdom  with  each  curious  year,"  but  have  been  first  heard  in 
the  solemn  protests  of  martyred  patriotism  and  the  loud  cries  of 
crushed  and  starving  labor.  When  common  sense  and  the  com 
mon  people  have  stereotyped  a  principle  into  a  statute,  then 
bookmen  come  to  explain  how  it  was  discovered  and  on  what 
ground  it  rests.  The  world  makes  history,  and  scholars  write  it, 
one  half  truly,  and  the  other  half  as  their  prejudices  blur  and 
distort  it. 

New  England  learned  more  of  the  principles  of  toleration 
from  a  lyceum  committee  doubting  the  dicta  of  editors  and 
bishops  when  they  forbade  it  to  put  Theodore  Parker  on  its 
platform;  more  from  a  debate  whether  the  Anti-Slavery  cause 
should  be  so  far  countenanced  as  to  invite  one  of  its  advocates 
to  lecture;  from  Sumner  and  Emerson,  George  William  Curtis, 


198  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

and  Edwin  Whipple,  refusing  to  speak  unless  a  negro  could  buy 
his  way  into  their  halls  as  freely  as  any  other,  —  New  England 
has  learned  more  from  these  lessons  than  she  has  or  could  have 
done  from  all  the  treatises  on  free  printing  from  Milton  and 
Roger  Williams,  through  Locke,  down  to  Stuart  Mill. 

Selden,  the  profoundest  scholar  of  his  day,  affirmed,  "No 
man  is  wiser  for  his  learning";  and  that  was  only  an  echo  of 
the  Saxon  proverb,  "  No  fool  is  a  perfect  fool  until  he  learns 
Latin."  Bancroft  says  of  our  fathers,  that  "the  wildest  theories 
of  the  human  reason  were  reduced  to  practice  by  a  community 
so  humble  that  no  statesman  condescended  to  notice  it,  and  a 
legislation  without  precedent  was  produced  off-hand  by  the 
instincts  of  the  people."  And  Wordsworth  testifies  that,  while 
German  schools  might  well  blush  for  their  subserviency,  — 

"A  few  strong  instincts  and  a  few  plain  rules, 

Among  the  herdsmen  of  the  Alps,  have  wrought 
More  for  mankind  at  this  unhappy  day 

Than  all  the  pride  of  intellect  and  thought." 

Wycliffe  was,  no  doubt,  a  learned  man.  But  the  learning  of 
his  day  would  have  burned  him,  had  it  dared,  as  it  did  burn  his 
dead  body  afterward.  Luther  and  Melanchthon  were  scholars, 
but  were  repudiated  by  the  scholarship  of  their  time,  which  fol 
lowed  Erasmus,  trying  "all  his  life  to  tread  on  eggs  without 
breaking  them";  he  who  proclaimed  that  "peaceful  error  was 
better  than  tempestuous  truth."  What  would  college-graduate 
Seward  weigh,  in  any  scale,  against  Lincoln  bred  in  affairs? 

Hence  I  do  not  think  the  greatest  things  have  been  done  for 
the  world  by  its  bookmen.  Education  is  not  the  chips  of  arith 
metic  and  grammar,  —  nouns,  verbs,  and  the  multiplication 
table;  neither  is  it  that  last  year's  almanac  of  dates,  or  series 
of  lies  agreed  upon,  which  we  so  often  mistake  for  history. 
Education  is  not  Greek  and  Latin  and  the  air-pump.  Still,  I 
rate  at  its  full  value  the  training  we  get  in  these  walls.  Though 
what  we  actually  carry  away  is  little  enough,  we  do  get  some 
training  of  our  powers,  as  the  gymnast  or  the  fencer  does  of  his 
muscles :  we  go  hence  also  with  such  general  knowledge  of  what 
mankind  has  agreed  to  consider  proved  and  settled,  that  we 
know  where  to  reach  for  the  weapon  when  we  need  it. 

I  have  often  thought  the  motto  prefixed  to  his  college  library 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  199 

catalogue  by  the  father  of  the  late  Professor  Peirce,  —  Professor 
Peirce,  the  largest  natural  genius,  the  man  of  the  deepest  reach 
and  firmest  grasp  and  widest  sympathy,  that  God  has  given  to 
Harvard  in  our  day,  —  whose  presence  made  you  the  loftiest 
peak  and  farthest  outpost  of  more  than  mere  scientific  thought, 
—  the  magnet  who,  with  his  twin  Agassiz,  made  Harvard  for 
forty  years  the  intellectual  Mecca  of  forty  States,  —  his  father's 
catalogue  bore  for  a  motto,  "Scire  ubi  aliquid  invenias  magna 
pars  eruditionis  est;"  and  that  always  seemed  to  me  to  gauge 
very  nearly  all  we  acquired  at  college,  except  facility  in  the  use 
of  our  powers.  Our  influence  in  the  community  does  not  really 
spring  from  superior  attainments,  but  from  this  thorough  train 
ing  of  faculties,  and  more  even,  perhaps,  from  the  deference  men 
accord  to  us. 

Gibbon  says  we  have  two  educations,  one  from  teachers,  and 
the  other  we  give  ourselves.  This  last  is  the  real  and  only  edu 
cation  of  the  masses,  —  one  gotten  from  life,  from  affairs,  from 
earning  one's  bread;  necessity,  the  mother  of  invention;  respon 
sibility,  that  teaches  prudence,  and  inspires  respect  for  right. 
Mark  the  critic  out  of  office:  how  reckless  hi  assertion,  how  care 
less  of  consequences;  and  then  the  caution,  forethought,  and 
fair  play  of  the  same  man  charged  with  administration.  See  that 
young,  thoughtless  wife  suddenly  widowed;  how  wary  and  skil 
ful  !  what  ingenuity  in  guarding  her  child  and  saving  his  rights ! 
Any  one  who  studied  Europe  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  could  not 
but  have  marked  the  level  of  talk  there,  far  below  that  of  our 
masses.  It  was  of  crops  and  rents,  markets  and  marriages,  scan 
dal  and  fun.  Watch  men  here,  and  how  often  you  listen  to  the 
keenest  discussions  of  right  and  wrong,  this  leader's  honesty, 
that  party's  justice,  the  fairness  of  this  law,  the  impolicy  of  that 
measure;  —  lofty,  broad  topics,  training  morals,  widening  views. 
Niebuhr  said  of  Italy,  sixty  years  ago,  "No  one  feels  himself  a 
citizen.  Not  only  are  the  people  destitute  of  hope,  but  they  have 
not  even  wishes  touching  the  world's  affairs;  and  hence  all  the 
springs  of  great  and  noble  thoughts  are  choked  up." 

In  this  sense  the  Fremont  campaign  of  1856  taught  Americans 
more  than  a  hundred  colleges;  and  John  Brown's  pulpit  at 
Harper's  Ferry  was  equal  to  any  ten  thousand  ordinary  chairs. 
God  lifted  a  million  of  hearts  to  his  gibbet,  as  the  Roman  cross 


200  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

lifted  a  world  to  itself  in  that  divine  sacrifice  of  two  thousand 
years  ago.  As  much  as  statesmanship  had  taught  in  our  pre 
vious  eighty  years,  that  one  week  of  intellectual  watching  and 
weighing  and  dividing  truth  taught  twenty  millions  of  people. 
Yet  how  little,  brothers,  can  we  claim  for  bookmen  in  that 
uprising  and  growth  of  1856!  And  while  the  first  of  American 
scholars  could  hardly  find,  in  the  rich  vocabulary  of  Saxon 
scorn,  words  enough  to  express,  amid  the  plaudits  of  his  class, 
his  loathing  and  contempt  for  John  Brown,  Europe  thrilled  to 
him  as  proof  that  our  institutions  had  not  lost  all  their  native 
and  distinctive  life.  She  had  grown  tired  of  our  parrot  note  and 
cold  moonlight  reflection  of  older  civilizations.  Lansdowne  and 
Brougham  could  confess  to  Sumner  that  they  had  never  read  a 
page  of  their  contemporary,  Daniel  Webster;  and  you  spoke  to 
vacant  eyes  when  you  named  Prescott,  fifty  years  ago,  to  aver 
age  Europeans;  while  Vienna  asked,  with  careless  indifference, 
"Seward,  who  is  he?"  But  long  before  our  ranks  marched  up 
State  Street  to  the  John  Brown  song,  the  banks  of  the  Seine  and 
of  the  Danube  hailed  the  new  life  which  had  given  us  another  and 
nobler  Washington.  Lowell  foresaw  him  when  forty  years  ago 
he  sang  of,  — 

"Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold, 

Wrong  forever  on  the  throne; 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future: 

And  behind  the  dim  unknown 
Standeth  God,  within  the  shadow, 

Keeping  watch  above  His  own." 

And  yet  the  bookmen,  as  a  class,  have  not  yet  acknowledged 
him. 

It  is  here  that  letters  betray  their  lack  of  distinctive  American 
character.  Fifty  million  of  men  God  gives  us  to  mould;  burn 
ing  questions,  keen  debate,  great  interests  trying  to  vindicate 
their  right  to  be,  sad  wrongs  brought  to  the  bar  of  public  judg 
ment,  —  these  are  the  people's  schools.  Timid  scholarship  either 
shrinks  from  sharing  in  these  agitations,  or  denounces  them  as 
vulgar  and  dangerous  interference  by  incompetent  hands  with 
matters  above  them.  A  chronic  distrust  of  the  people  pervades 
the  book-educated  class  of  the  North;  they  shrink  from  that  free 
speech  which  is  God's  normal  school  for  educating  men,  throw- 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  201 

ing  upon  them  the  grave  responsibility  of  deciding  great  ques 
tions,  and  so  lifting  them  to  a  higher  level  of  intellectual  and 
moral  life.  Trust  the  people  —  the  wise  and  the  ignorant,  the 
good  and  the  bad  —  with  the  gravest  questions,  and  in  the  end 
you  educate  the  race.  At  the  same  time  you  secure,  not  perfect 
institutions,  not  necessarily  good  ones,  but  the  best  institutions 
possible  while  human  nature  is  the  basis  and  the  only  material 
to  build  with.  Men  are  educated  and  the  state  uplifted  by  allow 
ing  all  —  every  one  —  to  broach  all  their  mistakes  and  advocate 
all  then*  errors.  The  community  that  will  not  protect  its  most 
ignorant  and  unpopular  member  in  the  free  utterance  of  his 
opinions,  no  matter  how  false  or  hateful,  is  only  a  gang  of  slaves ! 

Anacharsis  went  into  the  Archon's  court  at  Athens,  heard  a 
case  argued  by  the  great  men  of  that  city,  and  saw  the  vote  by 
five  hundred  men.  Walking  in  the  streets,  some  one  asked  him, 
"What  do  you  think  of  Athenian  liberty?"  "I  think,"  said  he, 
"wise  men  argue  cases,  and  fools  decide  them."  Just  what  that 
timid  scholar,  two  thousand  years  ago,  said  in  the  streets  of 
Athens,  that  which  calls  itself  scholarship  here  says  to-day  of 
popular  agitation,  —  that  it  lets  wise  men  argue  questions  and 
fools  decide  them.  But  that  Athens  where  fools  decided  the 
gravest  questions  of  policy  and  of  right  and  wrong,  where  prop 
erty  you  had  gathered  wearily  to-day  might  be  wrung  from 
you  by  the  caprice  of  the  mob  to-morrow,  —  that  very  Athens 
probably  secured,  for  its  era,  the  greatest  amount  of  human 
happiness  and  nobleness; -in vented  art,  and -sounded  for  us  the 
depths  of  philosophy.  God  lent  to  it  the  largest  intellects,  and 
it  flashes  to-day  the  torch  that  gilds  yet  the  mountain  peaks  of 
the  Old  World :  while  Egypt,  the  hunker  conservative  of  antiq 
uity,  where  nobody  dared  to  differ  from  the  priest  or  to  be 
wiser  than  his  grandfather;  where  men  pretended  to  be  alive, 
though  swaddled  in  the  grave-clothes  of  creed  and  custom  as 
close  as  their  mummies  were  in  linen,  —  that  Egypt  is  hid  in  the 
tomb  it  inhabited,  and  the  intellect  Athens  has  trained  for  us 
digs  to-day  those  ashes  to  find  out  how  buried  and  forgotten 
hunkerism  lived  and  acted. 

I  knew  a  signal  instance  of  this  disease  of  scholar's  distrust, 
and  the  cure  was  as  remarkable.  In  boyhood  and  early  life  I 
was  honored  with  the  friendship  of  Lothrop  Motley.  He  grew 


202  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

up  in  the  thin  air  of  Boston  provincialism,  and  pined  on  such 
weak  diet.  I  remember  sitting  with  him  once  in  the  State  House 
when  he  was  a  member  of  our  Legislature.  With  biting  words 
and  a  keen  crayon  he  sketched  the  ludicrous  points  in  the  minds 
and  persons  of  his  fellow-members,  and,  tearing  up  the  pictures, 
said  scornfully,  "What  can  become  of  a  country  with  such 
fellows  as  these  making  its  laws?  No  safe  investments;  your 
good  name  lied  away  any  hour,  and  little  worth  keeping  if  it 
were  not."  In  vain  I  combated  the  folly.  He  went  to  Europe, 
—  spent  four  or  five  years.  I  met  him  the  day  he  landed,  on  his 
return.  As  if  our  laughing  talk  in  the  State  House  had  that 
moment  ended,  he  took  my  hand  with  the  sudden  exclamation, 
"You  were  all  right:  I  was  all  wrong!  It  is  a  country  worth 
dying  for;  better  still,  worth  living  and  working  for,  to  make 
it  all  it  can  be!"  Europe  made  him  one  of  the  most  American 
of  all  Americans.  Some  five  years  later,  when  he  sounded  that 
bugle-note  in  his  letter  to  the  London  Times,  some  critics  who 
knew  his  early  mood,  but  not  its  change,  suspected  there  might 
be  a  taint  of  ambition  in  what  they  thought  so  sudden  a  conver 
sion.  I  could  testify  that  the  mood  was  five  years  old:  years 
before  the  slightest  shadow  of  political  expectation  had  dusked 
the  clear  mirror  of  his  scholar  life. 

This  distrust  shows  itself  in  the  growing  dislike  of  universal 
suffrage,  and  the  efforts  to  destroy  it  made  of  late  by  all  our  easy 
classes.  The  white  South  hates  universal  suffrage;  the  so-called 
cultivated  North  distrusts  it.  Journal  and  college,  social-science 
convention  and  the  pulpit,  discuss  the  propriety  of  restraining 
it.  Timid  scholars  tell  their  dread  of  it.  Carlyle,  that  bundle 
of  sour  prejudices,  flouts  universal  suffrage  with  a  blasphemy 
that  almost  equals  its  ignorance.  See  his  words:  "Democracy 
will  prevail  when  men  believe  the  vote  of  Judas  as  good  as  that 
of  Jesus  Christ."  No  democracy  ever  claimed  that  the  vote  of 
ignorance  and  crime  was  as  good  in  any  sense  as  that  of  wisdom 
and  virtue.  It  only  asserts  that  crime  and  ignorance  have  the 
same  right  to  vote  that  virtue  has.  Only  by  allowing  that  right, 
and  so  appealing  to  their  sense  of  justice,  and  throwing  upon 
them  the  burden  of  their  full  responsibility,  can  we  hope  ever  to 
raise  crime  and  ignorance  to  the  level  of  self-respect.  The  right 
to  choose  your  governor  rests  on  precisely  the  same  foundation 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  203 

as  the  right  to  choose  your  religion;  and  no  more  arrogant  or 
ignorant  arraignment  of  all  that  is  noble  in  the  civil  and  religious 
Europe  of  the  last  five  hundred  years  ever  came  from  the  triple 
crown  on  the  Seven  Hills  than  this  sneer  of  the  bigot  Scotsman. 
Protestantism  holds  up  its  hands  in  holy  horror,  and  tells  us  that 
the  Pope  scoops  out  the  brains  of  his  churchmen,  saying,  "I'll 
think  for  you:  you  need  only  obey."  But  the  danger  is,  you 
meet  such  popes  far  away  from  the  Seven  Hills;  and  it  is  some 
times  difficult  at  first  to  recognize  them,  for  they  do  not  by  any 
means  always  wear  the  triple  crown. 

Evarts  and  his  committee,  appointed  to  inquire  why  the  New 
York  City  government  is  a  failure,  were  not  wise  enough,  or  did 
not  dare,  to  point  out  the  real  cause,  the  tyranny  of  that  tool  of 
the  demagogue,  the  corner  grog-shop;  but  they  advised  taking 
away  the  ballot  from  the  poor  citizen.  But  this  provision  would 
not  reach  the  evil.  Corruption  does  not  so  much  rot  the  masses: 
it  poisons  Congress.  Credit  Mobilier  and  money  rings  are  not 
housed  under  thatched  roofs:  they  flaunt  at  the  Capitol.  As 
usual  in  chemistry,  the  scum  floats  uppermost.  The  railway 
king  disdained  canvassing  for  voters:  "It  is  cheaper,"  he  said, 
"to  buy  legislatures." 

It  is  not  the  masses  who  have  most  disgraced  our  political 
annals.  I  have  seen  many  mobs  between  the  seaboard  and  the 
Mississippi.  I  never  saw  or  heard  of  any  but  well-dressed  mobs, 
assembled  and  countenanced,  if  not  always  led  in  person,  by 
respectability  and  what  called  itself  education.  That  unrivalled 
scholar,  the  first  and  greatest  New  England  ever  lent  to  Con 
gress,  signalled  his  advent  by  quoting  the  original  Greek  of  the 
New  Testament  in  support  of  slavery,  and  offering  to  shoulder 
his  musket  in  its  defence;  and  forty  years  later  the  last  professor 
who  went  to  quicken  and  lift  the  moral  mood  of  those  halls  is 
found  advising  a  plain,  blunt,  honest  witness  to  forge  and  lie, 
that  this  scholarly  reputation  might  be  saved  from  wreck.  Singu 
lar  comment  on  Landor's  sneer,  that  there  is  a  spice  of  the 
scoundrel  in  most  of  our  literary  men.  But  no  exacting  level 
of  property  qualification  for  a  vote  would  have  saved  those 
stains.  In  those  cases  Judas  did  not  come  from  the  unlearned 
class. 

Grown  gray  over  history,  Macaulay  prophesied  twenty  years 


204  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

ago  that  soon  in  these  States  the  poor,  worse  than  another  inroad 
of  Goths  and  Vandals,  would  begin  a  general  plunder  of  the 
rich.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  our  national  funds  sell  as  well  in 
Europe  as  English  consols;  and  the  universal-suffrage  Union 
can  borrow  money  as  cheaply  as  Great  Britain,  ruled,  one  half 
by  Tories,  and  the  other  half  by  men  not  certain  that  they  dare 
call  themselves  Whigs.  Some  men  affected  to  scoff  at  democracy 
as  no  sound  basis  for  national  debt,  doubting  the  payment  of 
ours.  Europe  not  only  wonders  at  its  rapid  payment,  but  the 
only  taint  of  fraud  that  touches  even  the  hem  of  our  garment  is 
the  fraud  of  the  capitalist  cunningly  adding  to  its  burdens,  and 
increasing  unfairly  the  value  of  his  bonds;  not  the  first  hint  from 
the  people  of  repudiating  an  iota  even  of  its  unjust  additions. 

Yet  the  poor  and  the  unlearned  class  is  the  one  they  propose 
to  punish  by  disfranchisement. 

No  wonder  the  humbler  class  looks  on  the  whole  scene  with 
alarm.  They  see  their  dearest  right  in  peril.  When  the  easy 
class  conspires  to  steal,  what  wonder  the  humbler  class  draws 
together  to  defend  itself?  True,  universal  suffrage  is  a  terrible 
power;  and,  with  all  the  great  cities  brought  into  subjection  to 
the  dangerous  classes  by  grog,  and  Congress  sitting  to  register 
the  decrees  of  capital,  both  sides  may  well  dread  the  next  move. 
Experience  proves  that  popular  governments  are  the  best  pro 
tectors  of  life  and  property.  But  suppose  they  were  not,  Bancroft 
allows  that  "the  fears  of  one  class  are  no  measure  of  the  rights 
of  another." 

Suppose  that  universal  suffrage  endangered  peace  and  threat 
ened  property.  There  is  something  more  valuable  than  wealth, 
there  is  something  more  sacred  than  peace.  As  Humboldt  says, 
"The  finest  fruit  earth  holds  up  to  its  Maker  is  a  man."  To 
ripen,  lift,  and  educate  a  man  is  the  first  duty.  Trade,  law, 
learning,  science,  and  religion  are  only  the  scaffolding  where 
with  to  build  a  man.  Despotism  looks  down  into  the  poor  man's 
cradle,  and  knows  it  can  crush  resistance  and  curb  ill-will. 
Democracy  sees  the  ballot  in  that  baby-hand;  and  selfishness 
bids  her  put  integrity  on  one  side  of  those  baby  footsteps  and 
intelligence  on  the  other,  lest  her  own  hearth  be  in  peril.  Thank 
God  for  His  method  of  taking  bonds  of  wealth  and  culture  to 
share  all  their  blessings  with  the  humblest  soul  He  gives  to  their 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  205 

keeping!  The  American  should  cherish  as  serene  a  faith  as  his 
fathers  had.  Instead  of  seeking  a  coward  safety  by  battening 
down  the  hatches  and  putting  men  back  into  chains,  he  should 
recognize  that  God  places  him  hi  this  peril  that  he  may  work  out 
a  noble  security  by  concentrating  all  moral  forces  to  lift  this 
weak,  rotting,  and  dangerous  mass  into  sunlight  and  health. 
The  fathers  touched  their  highest  level  when,  with  stout-hearted 
and  serene  faith,  they  trusted  God  that  it  was  safe  to  leave  men 
with  all  the  rights  He  gave  them.  Let  us  be  worthy  of  their 
blood,  and  save  this  sheet-anchor  of  the  race,  —  universal  suf 
frage,  —  God's  church,  God's  school,  God's  method  of  gently 
binding  men  into  commonwealths  in  order  that  they  may  at  last 
melt  into  brothers. 

I  urge  on  college-bred  men  that,  as  a  class,  they  fail  in  repub 
lican  duty  when  they  allow  others  to  lead  in  the  agitation  of  the 
great  social  questions  which  stir  and  educate  the  age.  Agita 
tion  is  an  old  word  with  a  new  meaning.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  the 
first  English  leader  who  felt  himself  its  tool,  defined  it  to  be 
"marshalling  the  conscience  of  a  nation  to  mould  its  laws."  Its 
means  are  reason  and  argument,  —  no  appeal  to  arms.  Wait 
patiently  for  the  growth  of  public  opinion.  That  secured,  then 
every  step  taken  is  taken  forever.  An  abuse  once  removed  never 
reappears  in  history.  The  freer  a  nation  becomes,  the  more 
utterly  democratic  in  its  form,  the  more  need  of  this  outside 
agitation.  Parties  and  sects  laden  with  the  burden  of  securing 
their  own  success  cannot  afford  to  risk  new  ideas.  "Predomi 
nant  opinions,"  said  Disraeli,  "are  the  opinions  of  a  class  that 
is  vanishing."  The  agitator  must  stand  outside  of  organiza 
tions,  with  no  bread  to  earn,  no  candidate  to  elect,  no  party  to 
save,  no  object  but  truth,  —  to  tear  a  question  open  and  riddle 
it  with  light. 

In  all  modern  constitutional  governments,  agitation  is  the 
only  peaceful  method  of  progress.  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson, 
Rowland  Hill  and  Romilly,  Cobden  and  John  Bright,  Garrison 
and  O'Connell,  have  been  the  master  spirits  in  this  new  form  of 
crusade.  Rarely  in  this  country  have  scholarly  men  joined,  as 
a  class,  in  these  great  popular  schools,  in  these  social  movements 
which  make  the  great  interests  of  society  "crash  and  jostle 
against  each  other  like  frigates  in  a  storm." 


206  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

It  is  not  so  much  that  the  people  need  us,  or  will  feel  any  lack 
from  our  absence.  They  can  do  without  us.  By  sovereign  and 
superabundant  strength  they  can  crush  their  way  through  all 
obstacles. 

"They  will  march  prospering,  —  not  through  our  presence; 
Songs  will  inspirit  them,  —  not  from  our  lyre; 
Deeds  will  be  done  —  while  we  boast  our  quiescence; 
Still  bidding  crouch  whom  the  rest  bid  aspire." 

The  misfortune  is,  we  lose  a  God-given  opportunity  of  making 
the  change  an  unmixed  good,  or  with  the  slightest  possible  share 
of  evil,  and  are  recreant  beside  to  a  special  duty.  These  "agita 
tions"  are  the  opportunities  and  the  means  God  offers  us  to 
refine  the  taste,  mould  the  character,  lift  the  purpose,  and  edu 
cate  the  moral  sense  of  the  masses,  on  whose  intelligence  and 
self-respect  rests  the  state.  God  furnishes  these  texts.  He 
gathers  for  us  this  audience,  and  only  asks  of  our  coward  lips  to 
preach  the  sermons. 

There  have  been  four  or  five  of  these  great  opportunities. 
The  crusade  against  slavery  —  that  grand  hypocrisy  which  poi 
soned  the  national  life  of  two  generations  —  was  one,  —  a  con 
flict  between  two  civilizations  which  threatened  to  rend  the 
Union.  Almost  every  element  among  us  was  stirred  to  take  a 
part  in  the  battle.  Every  great  issue,  civil  and  moral,  was  in 
volved,  —  toleration  of  opinion,  limits  of  authority,  relation  of 
citizen  to  law,  place  of  the  Bible,  priest  and  layman,  sphere  of 
woman,  question  of  race,  State  rights  and  nationality;  and 
Channing  testified  that  free  speech  and  free  printing  owed  their 
preservation  to  the  struggle.  But  the  pulpit  flung  the  Bible  at 
the  reformer;  law  visited  him  with  its  penalties;  society  spewed 
him  out  of  its  mouth;  bishops  expurgated  the  pictures  of  their 
Common  Prayer-books;  and  editors  omitted  pages  in  republish- 
ing  English  history;  even  Pierpont  emasculated  his  class-book; 
Bancroft  remodelled  his  chapters;  and  Everett  carried  Wash 
ington  through  thirty  States,  remembering  to  forget  the  brave 
words  the  wise  Virginian  had  left  on  record  warning  his  country 
men  of  this  evil.  Amid  this  battle  of  the  giants,  scholarship  sat 
dumb  for  thirty  years  until  imminent  deadly  peril  convulsed  it 
into  action,  and  colleges,  in  their  despair,  gave  to  the  army  that 
help  they  had  refused  to  the  market-place  and  the  rostrum. 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  207 

There  was  here  and  there  an  exception.  That  earthquake 
scholar  at  Concord,  whose  serene  word,  like  a  whisper  among 
the  avalanches,  topples  down  superstitions  and  prejudices,  was 
at  his  post,  and,  with  half  a  score  of  others,  made  the  exception 
that  proved  the  rule.  Pulpits,  just  so  far  as  they  could  not  boast 
of  culture,  and  nestled  closest  down  among  the  masses,  were  in 
finitely  braver  than  the  "spires  and  antique  towers"  of  stately 
collegiate  institutions. 

Then  came  reform  of  penal  legislation,  —  the  effort  to  make 
law  mean  justice,  and  substitute  for  its  barbarism  Christianity 
and  civilization.  In  Massachusetts  Rantoul  represents  Beccaria 
and  Livingston,  Mackintosh  and  Romilly.  I  doubt  if  he  ever 
had  one  word  of  encouragement  from  Massachusetts  letters; 
and,  with  a  single  exception,  I  have  never  seen,  till  within  a 
dozen  years,  one  that  could  be  called  a  scholar  active  in  moving 
the  Legislature  to  reform  its  code. 

The  London  Times  proclaimed,  twenty  years  ago,  that  intem 
perance  produced  more  idleness,  crime,  disease,  want,  and  mis 
ery,  than  all  other  causes  put  together;  and  the  Westminster 
Review  calls  it  a  "curse  that  far  eclipses  every  other  calamity 
under  which  we  suffer."  Gladstone,  speaking  as  Prime  Minister, 
admitted  that  "greater  calamities  are  inflicted  on  mankind  by 
intemperance  than  by  the  three  great  historical  scourges,  —  war, 
pestilence,  and  famine."  De  Quincey  says,  "The  most  remark 
able  instance  of  a  combined  movement  in  society  which  history, 
perhaps,  will  be  summoned  to  notice,  is  that  which,  in  our  day, 
has  applied  itself  to  the  abatement  of  intemperance.  Two  vast 
movements  are  hurrying  into  action  by  velocities  continually 
accelerated,  —  the  great  revolutionary  movement  from  political 
causes  concurring  with  the  great  physical  movement  in  loco 
motion  and  social  intercourse  from  the  gigantic  power  of  steam. 
At  the  opening  of  such  a  crisis,  had  no  third  movement  arisen  of 
resistance  to  intemperate  habitsy  there  would  have  been  ground 
of  despondency  as  to  the  melioration  of  the  human  race."  These 
are  English  testimonies,  where  the  state  rests  more  than  half 
on  bayonets.  Here  we  are  trying  to  rest  the  ballot-box  on  a 
drunken  people.  "We  can  rule  a  great  city,"  said  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  "America  cannot;"  and  he  cited  the  mobs  of  New  York 
as  sufficient  proof  of  his  assertion. 


208  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

Thoughtful  men  see  that  up  to  this  hour  the  government  of 
great  cities  has  been  with  us  a  failure;  that  worse  than  the  dry- 
rot  of  legislative  corruption,  than  the  rancor  of  party  spirit,  than 
Southern  barbarism,  than  even  the  tyranny  of  incorporated 
wealth,  is  the  giant  burden  of  intemperance,  making  universal 
suffrage  a  failure  and  a  curse  in  every  great  city.  Scholars  who 
play  statesmen,  and  editors  who  masquerade  as  scholars,  can 
waste  much  excellent  anxiety  that  clerks  shall  get  no  office  until 
they  know  the  exact  date  of  Csesar's  assassination,  as  well  as 
the  latitude  of  Pekin,  and  the  Rule  of  Three.  But  while  this 
crusade  —  the  temperance  movement  —  has  been,  for  sixty 
years,  gathering  its  facts  and  marshalling  its  arguments,  rallying 
parties,  besieging  legislatures  and  putting  great  States  on  the 
witness-stand  as  evidence  of  the  soundness  of  its  methods,  schol 
ars  have  given  it  nothing  but  a  sneer.  But  if  universal  suffrage 
ever  fails  here  for  a  time,  —  permanently  it  cannot  fail,  —  it 
will  not  be  incapable  civil  service,  nor  an  ambitious  soldier,  nor 
Southern  vandals,  nor  venal  legislatures,  nor  the  greed  of  wealth, 
nor  boy  statesmen  rotten  before  they  are  ripe,  that  will  put 
universal  suffrage  into  eclipse :  it  will  be  rum  intrenched  in  great 
cities  and  commanding  every  vantage-ground. 

Social  science  affirms  that  woman's  place  in  society  marks  the 
level  of  civilization.  From  its  twilight  in  Greece,  through  the 
Italian  worship  of  the  Virgin,  the  dreams  of  chivalry,  the  justice 
of  the  civil  law,  and  the  equality  of  French  society,  we  trace  her 
gradual  recognition;  while  our  common  law,  as  Lord  Brougham 
confessed,  was,  with  relation  to  women,  the  opprobrium  of  the 
age  and  of  Christianity.  For  forty  years,  plain  men  and  women, 
working  noiselessly,  have  washed  away  that  opprobrium;  the 
statute  books  of  thirty  States  have  been  remodelled,  and  woman 
stands  to-day  almost  face  to  face  with  her  last  claim,  —  the  bal 
lot.  It  has  been  a  weary  and  thankless,  though  successful, 
struggle.  But  if  there  be  any  refuge  from  that  ghastly  curse, 
the  vice  of  great  cities,  —  before  which  social  science  stands 
palsied  and  dumb,  —  it  is  in  this  more  equal  recognition  of 
woman.  If,  in  this  critical  battle  for  universal  suffrage,  —  our 
fathers'  noblest  legacy  to  us,  and  the  greatest  trust  God  leaves 
in  our  hands,  —  there  be  any  weapon,  which,  once  taken  from 
the  armory,  will  make  victory  certain,  it  will  be,  as  it  has  been 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  209 

in  art,  literature,  and  society,  summoning  woman  into  the  polit 
ical  arena. 

But,  at  any  rate,  up  to  this  point,  putting  suffrage  aside,  there 
can  be  no  difference  of  opinion :  everything  born  of  Christianity, 
or  allied  to  Grecian  culture  or  Saxon  law,  must  rejoice  in  the 
gain.  The  literary  class,  until  half  a  dozen  years,  has  taken 
note  of  this  great  uprising  only  to  fling  every  obstacle  in  its  way. 
The  first  glimpse  we  get  of  Saxon  blood  in  history  is  that  line  of 
Tacitus  in  his  Germany,  which  reads,  "In  all  grave  matters 
they  consult  their  women."  Years  hence,  when  robust  Saxon 
sense  has  flung  away  Jewish  superstition  and  Eastern  prejudice, 
and  put  under  its  foot  fastidious  scholarship  and  squeamish 
fashion,  some  second  Tacitus,  from  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
will  answer  to  him  of  the  Seven  Hills,  "  In  all  grave  questions 
we  consult  our  women." 

I  used  to  think  that  then  we  could  say  to  letters  as  Henry  of 
Navarre  wrote  to  the  Sir  Philip  Sidney  of  his  realm,  Crillon, 
"the  bravest  of  the  brave,"  "We  have  conquered  at  Arques,  et 
tu  n'y  etais  pas,  Crillon"  (You  were  not  there,  my  Crillon). 
But  a  second  thought  reminds  me  that  what  claims  to  be  litera 
ture  has  been  always  present  in  that  battle-field,  and  always  in 
the  ranks  of  the  foe. 

Ireland  is  another  touchstone  which  reveals  to  us  how  absurdly 
we  masquerade  in  democratic  trappings  while  we  have  gone  to 
seed  in  tory  distrust  of  the  people;  false  to  every  duty,  which, 
as  eldest-born  of  democratic  institutions,  we  owe  to  the  op 
pressed,  and  careless  of  the  lesson  every  such  movement  may 
be  made  in  keeping  public  thought  clear,  keen,  and  fresh  as  to 
principles  which  are  the  essence  of  our  civilization,  the  ground 
work  of  all  education  in  republics. 

Sydney  Smith  said,  "The  moment  Ireland  is  mentioned  the 
English  seem  to  bid  adieu  to  common  sense,  and  to  act  with  the 
barbarity  of  tyrants  and  the  fatuity  of  idiots."  "As  long  as  the 
patient  will  suffer,  the  cruel  will  kick.  ...  If  the  Irish  go  on 
withholding  and  forbearing,  and  hesitating  whether  this  is  the 
time  for  discussion  or  that  is  the  time,  they  will  be  laughed  at 
another  century  as  fools,  and  kicked  for  another  century  as 
slaves."  Byron  called  England's  union  with  Ireland  "the  union 
of  the  shark  with  his  prey."  Bentham's  conclusion,  from  a  sur- 


210  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

vey  of  five  hundred  years  of  European  history,  was,  "Only  by 
making  the  ruling  few  uneasy  can  the  oppressed  many  obtain  a 
particle  of  relief.'*  Edmund  Burke  —  Burke,  the  noblest  figure 
in  the  Parliamentary  history  of  the  last  hundred  years,  greater 
than  Cicero  in  the  senate  and  almost  Plato  in  the  academy  — 
Burke  affirmed,  a  century  ago,  "  Ireland  has  learned  at  last  that 
justice  is  to  be  had  from  England,  only  when  demanded  at  the 
sword's  point."  And  a  century  later,  only  last  year,  Gladstone 
himself  proclaimed  in  a  public  address  in  Scotland,  "England 
never  concedes  anything  to  Ireland  except  when  moved  to  do  so 
by  fear." 

When  we  remember  these  admissions,  we  ought  to  clap  our 
hands  at  every  fresh  Irish  "outrage,"  as  a  parrot-press  styles 
it;  aware  that  it  is  only  a  far-off  echo  of  the  musket-shots  that 
rattled  against  the  Old  State  House  on  March  5th,  1770,  and  of 
the  warwhoop  that  made  the  tiny  spire  of  the  "  Old  South  "  trem 
ble  when  Boston  rioters  emptied  the  three  India  tea-ships  into 
the  sea,  —  welcome  evidence  of  living  force  and  rare  intelligence 
in  the  victim,  and  a  sign  that  the  day  of  deliverance  draws  each 
hour  nearer.  Cease  ringing  endless  changes  of  eulogy  on  the 
men  who  made  North's  Boston  port-bill  a  failure  while  every 
leading  journal  sends  daily  over  the  water  wishes  for  the  success 
of  Gladstone's  copy  of  the  bill  for  Ireland.  If  all  rightful  gov 
ernment  rests  on  consent,  —  if,  as  the  French  say,  you  "can  do 
almost  anything  with  a  bayonet  except  sit  on  it,"  —  be  at  least 
consistent,  and  denounce  the  man  who  covers  Ireland  with  regi 
ments  to  hold  up  a  despotism  which,  within  twenty  months,  he 
has  confessed  rests  wholly  upon  fear. 

Then  note  the  scorn  and  disgust  with  which  we  gather  up  our 
garments  about  us  and  disown  the  Sam  Adams  and  William 
Prescott,  the  George  Washington  and  John  Brown,  of  St.  Peters 
burg,  the  spiritual  descendants,  the  living  representatives,  of 
those  who  make  our  history  worth  anything  in  the  world's 
annals,  —  the  Nihilists. 

Nihilism  is  the  righteous  and  honorable  resistance  of  a  people 
crushed  under  an  iron  rule.  Nihilism  is  evidence  of  life.  When 
"order  reigns  in  Warsaw,"  it  is  spiritual  death.  Nihilism  is 
the  last  weapon  of  victims  choked  and  manacled  beyond  all 
other  resistance.  It  is  crushed  humanity's  only  means  of  making 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  211 

the  oppressor  tremble.  God  means  that  unjust  power  shall  be 
insecure;  and  every  move  of  the  giant,  prostrate  in  chains, 
whether  it  be  to  lift  a  single  dagger  or  stir  a  city's  revolt,  is  a 
lesson  in  justice.  One  might  well  tremble  for  the  future  of  the 
race  if  such  a  despotism  could  exist  without  provoking  the 
bloodiest  resistance.  I  honor  Nihilism;  since  it  redeems  human 
nature  from  the  suspicion  of  being  utterly  vile,  made  up  only  of 
heartless  oppressors  and  contented  slaves.  Every  line  in  our 
history,  every  interest  of  civilization,  bids  us  rejoice  when  the 
tyrant  grows  pale  and  the  slave  rebellious.  We  cannot  but  pity 
the  suffering  of  any  human  being,  however  richly  deserved;  but 
such  pity  must  not  confuse  our  moral  sense.  Humanity  gains. 
Chatham  rejoiced  when  our  fathers  rebelled.  For  every  single 
reason  they  alleged,  Russia  counts  a  hundred,  each  one  ten  times 
bitterer  than  any  Hancock  or  Adams  could  give.  Sam  Johnson's 
standing  toast  in  Oxford  port  was,  "Success  to  the  first  insur 
rection  of  slaves  in  Jamaica,"  a  sentiment  Southey  echoed. 
"Eschew  cant,"  said  that  old  moralist.  But  of  all  the  cants  that 
are  canted  in  this  canting  world,  though  the  cant  of  piety  may 
be  the  worst,  the  cant  of  Americans  bewailing  Russian  Nihilism 
is  the  most  disgusting. 

I  know  what  reform  needs,  and  all  it  needs,  in  a  land  where 
discussion  is  free,  the  press  untrammelled,  and  where  public 
halls  protect  debate.  There,  as  Emerson  says,  "  What  the  tender 
and  poetic  youth  dreams  to-day,  and  conjures  up  with  inarticu 
late  speech,  is  to-morrow  the  vociferated  result  of  public  opinion, 
and  the  day  after  is  the  charter  of  nations."  Lieber  said,  in  1870, 
"Bismarck  proclaims  to-day  in  the  Diet  the  very  principles  for 
which  we  were  hunted  and  exiled  fifty  years  ago."  Submit  to 
risk  your  daily  bread,  expect  social  ostracism,  count  on  a  mob 
now  and  then,  "be  in  earnest,  don't  equivocate,  don't  excuse, 
don't  retreat  a  single  inch,"  and  you  will  finally  be  heard.  No 
matter  how  long  and  weary  the  waiting,  at  last,  — 


"Ever  the  truth  comes  uppermost, 

And  ever  is  justice  done. 
For  Humanity  sweeps  onward:  1 

Where  to-day  the  martyr  stands,        0  A 
On  the  morrow  crouches  Judas  Vr 

With  the  silver  in  his  hands; 


212  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

"Far  in  front  the  cross  stands  ready, 

And  the  crackling  fagots  burn, 
While  the  hooting  mob  of  yesterday 

In  silent  awe  return 
To  glean  up  the  scattered  ashes 

Into  History's  golden  urn." 

In  such  a  land  he  is  doubly  and  trebly  guilty  who,  except  in 
some  most  extreme  case,  disturbs  the  sober  rule  of  law  and 
order. 

But  such  is  not  Russia.  In  Russia  there  is  no  press,  no  debate, 
no  explanation  of  what  Government  does,  no  remonstrance 
allowed,  no  agitation  of  public  issues.  Dead  silence,  like  that 
which  reigns  at  the  summit  of  Mont  Blanc,  freezes  the  whole 
empire,  long  ago  described  as  "a  despotism  tempered  by  assas 
sination."  Meanwhile,  such  despotism  has  unsettled  the  brains 
of  the  ruling  family,  as  unbridled  power  doubtless  made  some 
of  the  twelve  Caesars  insane:  a  madman,  sporting  with  the  lives 
and  comfort  of  a  hundred  million  of  men.  The  young  girl  whis 
pers  in  her  mother's  ear,  under  a  ceiled  roof,  her  pity  for  a 
brother  knouted  and  dragged  half  dead  into  exile  for  his  opin 
ions.  The  next  week  she  is  stripped  naked,  and  flogged  to  death 
in  the  public  square.  No  inquiry,  no  explanation,  no  trial,  no 
protest,  one  dead  uniform  silence,  the  law  of  the  tyrant.  Where 
is  there  ground  for  any  hope  of  peaceful  change?  Where  the 
fulcrum  upon  which  you  can  plant  any  possible  lever? 

Macchiavelli's  sorry  picture  of  poor  human  nature  would  be 
fulsome  flattery  if  men  could  keep  still  under  such  oppression. 
No,  no !  in  such  a  land  dynamite  and  the  dagger  are  the  neces 
sary  and  proper  substitutes  for  Faneuil  Hall  and  the  Daily 
Advertiser.  Anything  that  will  make  the  madman  quake  in  his 
bedchamber,  and  rouse  his  victims  into  reckless  and  desperate 
resistance.  This  is  the  only  view  an  American,  the  child  of  1620 
and  1776,  can  take  of  Nihilism.  Any  other  unsettles  and  per 
plexes  the  ethics  of  our  civilization. 

Born  within  sight  of  Bunker  Hill,  in  a  commonwealth  which 
adopts  the  motto  of  Algernon  Sidney,  sub  libertate  quietem 
(accept  no'fceace  without  liberty),  —  son  of  Harvard,  whose 
first  pledge  was  "Truth,"  citizen  of  a  republic  based  on  the 
claim  that  no  government  is  rightful  unless  resting  on  the  con- 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  213 

sent  of  the  people,  and  which  assumes  to  lead  in  asserting  the 
rights  of  humanity,  —  I  at  least  can  say  nothing  else  and  nothing 
less  —  no,  not  if  every  tile  on  Cambridge  roofs  were  a  devil  hoot 
ing  my  words ! 

I  shall  bow  to  any  rebuke  from  those  who  hold  Christianity  to 
command  entire  non-resistance.  But  criticism  from  any  other 
quarter  is  only  that  nauseous  hypocrisy,  which,  stung  by  three 
penny  tea-tax,  piles  Bunker  Hill  with  granite  and  statues,  prat 
ing  all  the  time  of  patriotism  and  broadswords,  while,  like 
another  Pecksniff,  it  recommends  a  century  of  dumb  submission 
and  entire  non-resistance  to  the  Russians,  who,  for  a  hundred 
years,  have  seen  then*  sons  by  thousands  dragged  to  death  or 
exile,  no  one  knows  which,  in  this  worse  than  Venetian  mystery 
of  police,  and  their  maidens  flogged  to  death  in  the  market 
place,  and  who  share  the  same  fate  if  they  presume  to  ask  the 
reason  why. 

"It  is  unfortunate,"  says  Jefferson,  "that  the  efforts  of  man 
kind  to  secure  the  freedom  of  which  they  have  been  deprived 
should  be  accompanied  with  violence  and  even  with  crime.  But 
while  we  weep  over  the  means,  we  must  pray  for  the  end." 
Pray  fearlessly  for  such  ends:  there  is  no  risk!  "Men  are  all 
tories  by  nature,"  says  Arnold,  "when  tolerably  well  off:  only 
monstrous  injustice  and  atrocious  cruelty  can  rouse  them." 
Some  talk  of  the  rashness  of  the  uneducated  classes.  Alas! 
ignorance  is  far  oftener  obstinate  than  rash.  Against  one  French 
Revolution  —  that  scarecrow  of  the  ages  —  weigh  Asia,  "carved 
in  stone,"  and  a  thousand  years  of  Europe,  with  her  half-dozen 
nations  meted  out  and  trodden  down  to  be  the  dull  and  con 
tented  footstools  of  priests  and  kings.  The  customs  of  a  thou 
sand  years  ago  are  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  passing  generation, 
so  deeply  buried,  so  fixed,  that  the  most  violent  efforts  of  the 
maddest  fanatic  can  drag  it  but  a  hand's-breadth. 

Before  the  war  Americans  were  like  the  crowd  in  that  terrible 
hall  of  Eblis  which  Beckford  painted  for  us,  —  each  man  with  his 
hand  pressed  on  the  incurable  sore  in  his  bosom,  and  pledged 
not  to  speak  of  it :  compared  with  other  lands,  we  were  intellec 
tually  and  morally  a  nation  of  cowards. 

When  I  first  entered  the  Roman  States,  a  custom-house  official 
seized  all  my  French  books.  In  vain  I  held  up  to  him  a  treatise 


214  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

by  Fenelon,  and  explained  that  it  was  by  a  Catholic  archbishop 
of  Cambray.  Gruffly  he  answered,  "It  makes  no  difference: 
it  is  French."  As  I  surrendered  the  volume  to  his  remorseless 
grasp,  I  could  not  but  honor  the  nation  which  had  made  its  revo 
lutionary  purpose  so  definite  that  despotism  feared  its  very  lan 
guage.  I  only  wished  that  injustice  and  despotism  everywhere 
might  one  day  have  as  good  cause  to  hate  and  to  fear  everything 
American. 

At  last  that  disgraceful  seal  of  slave  complicity  is  broken. 
Let  us  inaugurate  a  new  departure,  recognize  that  we  are  afloat 
on  the  current  of  Niagara,  —  eternal  vigilance  the  condition  of 
our  safety,  —  that  we  are  irrevocably  pledged  to  the  world  not 
to  go  back  to  bolts  and  bars,  —  could  not  if  we  would,  and  would 
not  if  we  could.  Never  again  be  ours  the  fastidious  scholarship 
that  shrinks  from  rude  contact  with  the  masses.  Very  pleasant 
it  is  to  sit  high  up  in  the  world's  theatre  and  criticise  the  un 
graceful  struggles  of  the  gladiators,  shrug  one's  shoulders  at  the 
actors'  harsh  cries,  and  let  every  one  know  that  but  for  "this 
villainous  saltpetre  you  would  yourself  have  been  a  soldier." 
But  Bacon  says,  "In  the  theatre  of  man's  life,  God  and  His 
angels  only  should  be  lookers-on."  "Sin  is  not  taken  out  of  man 
as  Eve  was  out  of  Adam,  by  putting  him  to  sleep."  "Very 
beautiful,"  says  Richter,  "is  the  eagle  when  he  floats  with  out 
stretched  wings  aloft  in  the  clear  blue;  but  sublime  when  he 
plunges  down  through  the  tempest  to  his  eyry  on  the  cliff,  where 
his  unfledged  young  ones  dwell  and  are  starving."  Accept 
proudly  the  analysis  of  Fisher  Ames:  "A  monarchy  is  a  man-of- 
war,  stanch,  iron-ribbed,  and  resistless  when  under  full  sail;  yet 
a  single  hidden  rock  sends  her  to  the  bottom.  Our  republic  is  a 
raft,  hard  to  steer,  and  your  feet  always  wet;  but  nothing  can 
sink  her."  If  the  Alps,  piled  in  cold  and  silence,  be  the  emblem 
of  despotism,  we  joyfully  take  the  ever-restless  ocean  for  ours, 
—  only  pure  because  never  still. 

Journalism  must  have  more  self-respect.  Now  it  praises  good 
and  bad  men  so  indiscriminately  that  a  good  word  from  nine- 
tenths  of  our  journals  is  worthless.  In  burying  our  Aaron  Burrs, 
both  political  parties  —  in  order  to  get  the  credit  of  magna 
nimity  —  exhaust  the  vocabulary  of  eulogy  so  thoroughly  that 
there  is  nothing  left  with  which  to  distinguish  our  John  Jays. 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC  215 

The  love  of  a  good  name  in  life  and  a  fair  reputation  to  survive 
us  —  that  strong  bond  to  well-doing  —  is  lost  where  every 
career,  however  stained,  is  covered  with  the  same  fulsome  flat 
tery,  and  where  what  men  say  in  the  streets  is  the  exact  opposite 
of  what  they  say  to  each  other.  De  mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum  most 
men  translate,  "Speak  only  good  of  the  dead."  I  prefer  to  con 
strue  it,  "Of  the  dead  say  nothing  unless  you  can  tell  something 
good."  And  if  the  sin  and  the  recreancy  have  been  marked 
and  far-reaching  in  their  evil,  even  the  charity  of  silence  is  not 
permissible. 

To  be  as  good  as  our  fathers  we  must  be  better.  They  silenced 
their  fears  and  subdued  their  prejudices,  inaugurating  free 
speech  and  equality  with  no  precedent  on  the  file.  Europe 
shouted  "Madmen!"  and  gave  us  forty  years  for  the  shipwreck. 
With  serene  faith  they  persevered.  Let  us  rise  to  their  level. 
Crush  appetite  and  prohibit  temptation  if  it  rots  great  cities. 
Intrench  labor  in  sufficient  bulwarks  against  that  wealth,  which, 
without  the  tenfold  strength  of  modern  incorporation,  wrecked 
the  Grecian  and  Roman  States;  and,  with  a  sterner  effort  still, 
summon  women  into  civil  life  as  reenforcement  to  our  laboring 
ranks  in  the  effort  to  make  our  civilization  a  success. 

Sit  not,  like  the  figure  on  our  silver  coin,  looking  ever  back 
ward. 

"New  occasions  teach  new  duties; 
Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth; 
They  must  upward  still,  and  onward, 
Who  would  .keep  abreast  of  Truth. 
Lo!  before  us  gleam  her  camp-fires! 
We  ourselves  must  Pilgrims  be, 
Launch  our  Mayflower,  and  steer  boldly 
Through  the  desperate  winter  sea, 
Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portal 
With  the  Past's  blood-rusted  key." 


THE  SOCIAL  PLAINT 

BY   ELISHA   BENJAMIN  ANDREWS 

Delivered  before  the  New  York  Alumni,  May  23,  1892.   Reprinted  from 
The  New  World,  June,  1892. 

Is  the  social  body,  economically  speaking,  well  or  ill?  It  is 
certainly  complaining,  and  suffers  painful  attacks.  Some  tell  us 
that  these  are  purely  superficial,  and  that  the  subject  is,  after 
all,  in  the  best  of  health.  Others  will  have  it  that  the  case  is 
truly  serious,  so  that  naught  but  blood-letting  will  restore  nor 
mal  tone  and  strength.  Still  others  declare  the  patient  hopelessly 
gone.  Not  taking  sides,  at  least  with  this  or  that  extreme,  and 
not  presuming  to  suggest  either  diagnosis  or  treatment,  we  will  in 
this  paper  attempt  an  examination  and  registry  of  symptoms. 

Let  it  be  distinctly  understood  that  the  criticism  to  follow  is 
not  of  this  or  that  man,  or  of  particular  men  at  all.  Individuals 
are  only  in  the  rarest  instances  to  blame  for  any  ills  from  which 
society  may  suffer.  They,  the  good  as  well  as  the  bad,  are  the 
creatures  of  the  system  in  which  they  are  bound  up ;  and  in  gen 
eral,  so  long  as  this  is  unchanged,  they  cannot  be  censured  for 
proceeding  as  they  do.  Wrongs  that  individual  action  might 
conceivably  cure  are  often  due  to  ignorance,  which,  in  economic 
matters,  is  still  terribly  dense.  To  represent  employers  as  so 
many  heartless  Shylocks,  each  bent  upon  getting  from  the  poor 
his  pound  of  flesh,  betrays  slight  preparation  for  discussing  the 
relations  of  labor  and  capital.  What  is  commonly  said  against 
the  existing  economic  order  needs  sifting,  of  course.  The  fact  of 
poverty  is  not  necessarily  a  just  impeachment  of  this  order. 
Many  of  the  poor  are  poor  because  of  indolence  or  thriftlessness, 
for  which  they  deserve  to  suffer.  Even  if  laziness  is  sometimes 
constitutional,  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  the  constitution  has 
derived  its  perverse  bent  from  social  maladjustments,  suffer 
ing  through  such  laziness  may  be,  sociologically  considered,  not 
an  evil  at  all,  but  of  remedial  tendency,  and  therefore  a  good 
instead. 


THE  SOCIAL  PLAINT  217 

Nor  is  it  a  proper  complaint  that  some  are  better  off  than 
others.  They  may  have  wrought  or  economized  better.  We  feel 
as  by  a  sort  of  intuition  that  gain  gotten  by  the  honest,  open  use 
of  one's  own  powers,  without  artificial  or  accidental  advantage 
of  any  kind,  is  earned,  —  that  it  belongs  to  the  possessor,  so  that 
no  other  has  any  right  to  view  his  possession  as  a  hardship.  That 
the  gain  has  arisen  through  superior  native  endowment  no  un 
prejudiced  mind  would  regard  as  impairing  the  title,  unless  this 
has  worked  its  victory  through  craft  and  cunning.  It  is  only 
accidental  or  artificial  advantages  to  which  our  moral  sense 
objects. 

We  should,  however,  not  abate  sharp  criticism  of  our  economic 
doings,  if  the  evil  attaching  to  them  seem  inevitable.  Though  it 
seem  so,  it  may  not  really  be  so,  and  in  troubles  thus  perilous 
to  humanity's  advance,  we  have  no  right  to  remit  efforts  at 
reform  so  long  as  a  ray  of  hope  remains.  Conveyance  of  one's 
thought  across  this  continent  in  an  hour,  and  of  one's  body  in  a 
week,  was  formerly  deemed  impossible.  Poverty  may  yet  dis 
appear. 

Nor  does  one  at  all  bar  out  or  weaken  an  indictment  of  soci 
ety's  ways  by  inquiring  for  the  complainant's  theory  of  remedy. 
He  may  state  grievances  truly,  though  neither  a  theorist  nor  a 
practitioner.  Perhaps  no  help  whatever  is  in  store.  Very  many 
have  hope  on  this  point  rather  than  confidence.  Shall  we,  there 
fore,  call  evil  good?  Nay,  not  even  were  an  oracle  from  heaven 
to  declare  all  hope  vain.  That  unrighteousness  can  never  be 
banished  from  the  earth  does  not  turn  it  into  righteousness.  If 
the  exploiting  of  the  weak  by  the  strong,  and  of  the  honest  by 
the  cunning,  the  unwilling  beggar,  the  starving  babe,  the  gaunt 
woman  sewing  twenty  continuous  hours  at  the  machine  for  the 
wage  of  a  shilling,  and  the  agricultural  laborer,  who  just  man 
ages,  by  agonizing  toil,  year  in  and  year  out,  to  keep  death's 
clutch  soft  upon  his  throat,  —  if  these  are  perpetual  phenomena, 
so  surely  are  they  perpetual  wrongs,  and  with  our  living  and  our 
dying  breath  they  ought  to  be  proclaimed  as  such. 

Evaporating,  then,  the  agitator's  plaint,  we  find  solid  matter 
about  as  follows:  In  the  first  place,  many  men  are  rich,  either 
altogether  without  economic  merit,  or  wholly  out  of  proportion 
to  their  economic  merit.  This  will  have  to  be  admitted,  however 


218  ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS 

loosely  and  largely  one  interprets  economic  merit;  or  however 
great  allowance  we  make  for  intellectual  labor  in  its  various 
kinds.  By  economic  merit  is  meant  the  quality  which  attaches 
to  any  human  action,  or  line  of  action,  in  virtue  of  its  advanta- 
geousness,  on  the  whole,  and  in  the  long  run,  to  the  material 
weal  of  the  community.  It  assumes  three  forms.  A  man  may 
claim  economic  merit,  when  and  so  far  as  he  is  a  wage-earner  in 
any  useful  calling;  when  and  so  far  as  he  earns  economic  profits, 
that  is,  secures  profits  by  effort  and  agency  of  a  genuinely  eco 
nomic  kind,  without  trick,  theft,  monopoly,  or  any  artificial  ad 
vantage;  and  when  and  so  far  as  he  owns  capital  as  distinguished 
from  unproductive  wealth.  Capital  is  productive  wealth.  Hence 
a  holder  of  capital  must  be,  indirectly  at  any  rate,  a  wealth-user. 
Such  a  functionary  is  called  economically  meritorious  at  this 
point,  not  as  a  final  judgment,  or  to  beg  the  question  against 
Socialists,  but  provisionally,  for  the  sake  of  argument.  One  could 
doubtless  grant  that  this  is  a  lower  form  of  merit  than  would  be 
realized  were  the  holder  also  a  worker;  yet  in  society  as  at  pres 
ent  organized,  the  mere  holder  of  capital  must  be  regarded  as 
deserving  well.  We  see  this  instantly  if  we  suppose  owners  of 
capital  to  consume  it  instead  of  retaining  it.  We  waive  for  the 
moment  the  question  whether  private  capital  is,  on  the  whole, 
administered  as  well,  as  truly  for  society's  good,  as  if  society 
owned  and  administered  it  all,  although  the  difference  is  cer 
tainly  smaller  than  Socialists  contend. 

These,  then,  —  wages-earning,  profits-earning,  and  interest- 
earning,  —  are  the  three  forms  of  economic  merit;  but  it  goes 
almost  without  saying  that  wealth  comes  to  many  who  are  not 
meritorious  in  any  one  of  these  ways,  and  to  many  others  out 
of  all  proportion  to  their  merit.  Some  flourish  by  gambling; 
whether  this  takes  place  at  the  faro  table  or  on  the  stock  exchange, 
makes  no  difference.  The  gambler  produces  nothing,  yet  he  lives, 
and  often  thrives.  This  means  that  he  is  a  leech,  the  rest  of  us 
having  to  share  our  blood  with  him.  The  immeasurable  evils 
which  have  fastened  upon  stock  operations  all  honest  people  be 
wail,  and  with  justice.  It  is,  of  course,  difficult  to  lay  down  a  fair 
and  tenable  definition  of  legitimate  speculation.  The  best  one, 
perhaps,  tests  legitimacy  by  genuine  intention  to  transfer  the 
goods.  It  is  pleasing  to  know  that  a  professed  intention  to  trans- 


THE  SOCIAL  PLAINT  219 

fer  is  insisted  upon  in  all  the  regular  exchanges,  whenever  "fu 
tures"  are  trafficked  in,  and  is  implied  in  the  printed  forms  of 
contract  provided  for  such  transactions.  The  precise  difference 
between  an  exchange  and  a  "bucket-shop  "  is  usually  declared  to 
be,  that  in  the  latter  the  "puts,"  "calls,"  "straddles,"  and  the 
rest,  are  nothing  but  bets  on  the  market  prices.  Bucket-shops 
are  doubtless  the  more  exclusively  given  up  to  this  practice,  but, 
in  spite  of  rules,  it  is  dreadfully  prevalent  in  the  exchanges  as 
well.1 

We  can  see  that  proper  speculation  is  advantageous.  It  acts 
like  a  governor  to  a  steam-engine,  preventing  prices  from  rising 
so  high  or  falling  so  low  as  they  otherwise  must.  Shocks  in  the 
market  that  but  for  it  would  be  terrible,  are  so  distributed  by  it 
as  to  render  them  least  harmful.  The  effect  of  absolutely  wise 
speculation  would  be  to  annihilate  speculation.  Honest  specula 
tion  is,  therefore,  negatively  productive,  like  the  work  of  judges, 
army,  and  police;  it  is  not  creative  of  wealth,  but  preventive  of 
loss.  Gambling  manifestly  lacks  this  saving  character.  It  does 
not  steady  prices,  but  the  reverse.  At  best  it  but  transfers  prop 
erty  from  pocket  to  pocket. 

Other  economic  parasites  fatten  on  the  produce  of  cheating, 
stealing,  and  robbery.  Such,  of  course,  earn  nothing:  as  little 
when  they  proceed  by  "freezing  out"  small  stockholders,  or  by 
forming  sub-corporations  to  secure  all  the  profits  of  main  corpo 
rations  under  forms  of  law,  or  by  creating  artificial  "corners"  or 
artificial  fluctuations  in  prices,  as  when  they  deftly  pick  your 
pockets  or  bravely  throttle  you  upon  the  road.  Individuals  often 
secure  great  fortunes  by  mere  chance,  happening  to  be  so  circum 
stanced  at  some  felicitous  phase  of  business  meteorology  as  to 
fill  their  buckets  from  the  golden  shower.  Such  beneficiaries  are, 
of  course,  not  thieves;  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  not  creators, 
but  only  receivers  of  social  wealth. 

Multitudes  more  prey  upon  society  through  monopoly.  This 
may  be  created  consciously  and  artificially,  as  in  some  of  the 
great  trusts  now  so  numerous,  or  it  may  arise  bond  fide,  in  a  nat 
ural  way,  without  self-seeking  on  the  part  of  any  one,  through 
well-meant  but  unwise  legislation.  The  mere  existence  of 
monopoly  in  any  quarter  is  no  sign  of  wrong.  Many  monopoly 
1  Compare,  on  this  general  subject,  More's  Utopia,  chap.  xn. 


220  ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS 

concerns  actually  earn  a  large  part  of  their  profits,  and  some  earn 
all.  So  far,  they  are  not  to  be  condemned.  But  the  gains  of 
others  are  clearly  inequitable;  they  are  not,  like  genuine  wages 
or  profits,  a  blessing  to  all  society,  but  are  simply  so  much  sub 
tracted  from  the  social  store,  impoverishing  society  for  the  mo 
nopolists'  behoof.  Many  mistakenly  suppose  monopoly  to  exist 
only  where  every  sort  of  competition  is  absent.  It  is  not  neces 
sary,  in  order  that  an  establishment,  or  a  banded  group  of 
establishments,  may  put  an  undue  price  upon  its  goods,  that 
it  should  directly  control  the  entire  production.  Immediate 
mastery  of  a  majority  is  practically  the  mastery  of  all.  This  is 
demonstrable  at  once  a  priori  and  from  experience.  One  can 
maintain  a  monopoly  until  his  competitors,  offering  at  a  lower 
price,  produce  enough  to  supply  the  market.  Up  to  that  limit 
their  competition  is  formal  only;  they  in  fact  participate  in  the 
extraordinary  gains.  Albert  Schaeffle,1  with  many  others,  has 
pointed  out  that  Ricardo's  law  of  rent  applies  in  a  sense,  under 
established  industrial  habits,  to  all  business.  The  goods  of  any 
given  kind,  sold  at  a  given  hour,  in  any  given  market,  bring  not 
the  cost  of  their  production  plus  a  fair  profit,  but  the  cost  of  the 
part  of  them,  be  it  never  so  small,  which  cost  the  most.  On  all 
the  cheaper  portions  some  one  has  a  bonanza.  If  such  cheapness 
was  begotten  of  skill,  careful  oversight,  or  any  other  form  of 
strictly  economic  activity,  the  abnormal  profit  was  earned.  In 
any  event  we  must  regard  it  as  legitimate,  existing  conditions 
being  presupposed;  but  in  ninety-nine  per  cent  of  such  cases 
the  bonanza  can  be  traced  more  or  less  completely  to  mere  luck. 
The  case  is  nearly  the  same  if  riches  are  acquired  by  simple 
shrewdness,  even  though  this  falls  short  of  criminality,  provided 
the  shrewdness  is  not  an  element  in  economic  merit.  During  our 
war,  for  instance,  telegraph  lines  being  then  not  extensive  in  the 
East,  a  certain  sharp  cotton  speculator  used  to  cause  every 
steamer  approaching  Calcutta  from  Europe  to  be  boarded  far 
out,  and  the  tendency  of  cotton  ascertained  and  signalled  to  him 
long  before  the  ship  touched.  A  fleet  vessel  of  his  own,  with 
steam  up,  would  be  waiting  at  the  outer  anchorage,  which,  on 
receiving  word  from  the  proprietor  by  another  signal  to  "buy" 
or  "sell,"  sped  to  carry  this  command  to  all  his  agents  in  the 
1  Bau  und  Leben  des  socialen  Korpers,  m,  431,  435. 


THE  SOCIAL  PLAINT  221 

Pacific  cotton  ports,  where  its  execution  swelled  his  gold  pile  by 
millions  every  time.  Such  gains  may  be  technically  legitimate, 
and  in  international  trade  perhaps  unavoidable;  but,  so  far  as 
the  internal  economic  system  of  any  country  offers  facilities  for 
such  gold-winning  extraordinary,  as  in  great  land  speculations, 
all  will  feel  that  it  is  still  imperfect. 

If  he  who  is  unduly  enriched  by  a  monopoly  has  himself  cre 
ated  the  monopoly,  we  are  quite  sure  to  condemn  the  man;  but 
we  often  do  this  without  observing  that  just  such  evils  as  he  has 
effected  befall  us  each  day,  in  ways  for  which  not  men  but  the 
economic  system  is  at  fault.  The  unfair  gain  which  accrues  to 
multitudes  from  protective  and  other  laws,  hurts  society  only  in 
the  same  way  as  the  unearned  increment  of  land  values  does. 
In  a  vast  majority  of  cases  the  taker  of  pure  economic  rent  earns 
nothing,  however  honestly  or  truly  he  may  have  earned  the 
capital  with  which  he  bought  the  privilege  of  rent-taking.  The 
main  difference  is,  that  protective  laws,  so-called,  are  young, 
while  land  laws  are  so  old  that  most  people,  and,  with  regret  be 
it  added,  some  economists,  take  them  as  ordinances  of  nature  or 
of  God. 

One  of  the  worst  evils  of  the  sort  now  under  survey,  making 
some  men  rich  at  others'  expense,  and  wholly  apart  from  eco 
nomic  merit,  is  fluctuation  in  the  purchasing  power  of  money. 
It  is  peculiarly  bad,  because  it  is  sweeping  in  its  operation,  and 
also  because  it  works  so  silently  and  subtly  that  only  the  trained 
mind  can  see  what  is  doing.  If  general  prices  fall,  holders  of 
money  and  of  titles  calling  for  money  grow  rich  by  cutting  cou 
pons,  taking  to  themselves  so  much  of  society's  pile  for  no  equiv 
alent  whatever,  of  course  making  the  rest  in  like  degree  poorer. 
If  general  prices  rise,  the  reverse  infelicity  occurs.  Special  atten 
tion  is  called  to  the  fact  that  it  is  quite  immaterial  whether  the 
fatal  change  in  the  value  of  money  arises  from  new  plenty  or 
new  scarcity  of  money  itself,  or  because  of  extra  dearness  or 
cheapness  on  the  part  of  general  commodities.  It  is  as  truly  a 
source  of  robbery  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  In  addition 
to  the  cheat  which  all  general  price  fluctuations  entail,  falling 
prices  have  the  additional  baneful  effect  of  painfully  discourag 
ing  industry  and  production,  —  an  effect  which  has  had  as  much 
to  do  as  any  one  thing  with  the  hard  times  of  recent  years. 


222  ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS 

Through  rise  and  fall  in  money  values,  then,  as  well  as  through 
mere  luck,  through  monopoly,  through  theft,  and  through 
gambling,  it  actually  does  come  to  pass  that,  under  our  present 
economic  practice,  one  section  of  society  eats,  drinks,  and  is 
merry,  in  whole  or  in  part,  at  the  expense  of  the  rest,  very 
much  as  if  the  latter  were  slaves. 

On  the  other  hand,  —  the  counterpart  of  this  proposition,  — 
a  great  many  men  are  poor  without  the  slightest  economic 
demerit.  They  are  people  who  do  the  best  they  can,  and  always 
have  done  so;  they  are  not  dissipated,  indolent,  thriftless,  or 
prodigal  of  children,  but  quite  free  from  these  vices,  being  in 
every  way  exemplary  citizens  and  worthy  members  of  the  com 
munity.  Yet  they  are  poor,  often  very  poor,  never  free  from  fear 
of  want,  doomed  for  life  to  the  alternative  of  hard  labor  or  star 
vation,  and  as  thoroughly  cut  off  from  all  means  of  culture 
proper,  as  completely  precluded  from  the  rational  living  of  life, 
as  were  the  Helots  of  old  Sparta.  Such  human  beings  are  to  be 
found  in  every  city  of  the  world.  They  are  less  numerous  in 
America  than  in  Europe,  but  America  has  them,  too.  Let  him 
who  doubts  read  Mrs.  Helen  Campbell's  Prisoners  of  Poverty, 
or  better,  go  among  these  poor  people,  converse  with  them,  and 
judge  for  himself.1 

It  has  been  carefully  computed  that  in  representative  districts 
of  East  London  no  less  than  55  per  cent  of  the  very  poor,  and 
fully  68  per  cent  of  the  other  poor,  are  so  because  of  deficiency  of 
employment,2  while  only  4  per  cent  of  the  very  poor,  and  none 
of  the  other  poor,  are  loafers.  It  is  estimated  that  53  per  cent 
of  the  needy  in  New  York  City  suffer  for  work  instead  of  aid, 
and  the  willing  idlers  among  those  are  certainly  no  more  numer 
ous  proportionally  than  in  London.  According  to  the  "Massa 
chusetts  Labor  Statistics*'  for  1887,  almost  a  third  of  the  people 
in  that  State  returned  as  usually  engaged  in  remunerative  toil 

1  For  the  poverty  of  East  London,  see  Mr.  Charles  Booth's  Labour  and  Life 
of  the  People,  vol.  i.   G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.   1889. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  147.  These  are  invaluable  statistics.  Of  the  four  thousand  cases  on 
which  they  are  based,  among  the  very  poor,  14  per  cent  are  so  from  drink  or 
thriftlessness  in  the  family,  27  per  cent  from  illness,  infirmity,  size  of  family,  or 
from  one  of  these  causes  combined  with  irregular  work.  Among  the  other  poor, 
13  per  cent  of  the  families  suffered  from  drink  or  lack  of  thrift,  19  per  cent  from 
illness,  size  of  family,  etc. 


THE  SOCIAL  PLAINT  223 

were  unemployed  during  nearly  a  third  of  the  census  year,  1885; 
the  working  people  of  the  State,  as  a  whole,  averaged  to  be 
employed  at  their  main  occupations  less  than  eleven  months  of 
the  year.  These  results  are  not  far  from  normal  for  this  country, 
while  for  most  others  they  are  much  too  good  to  be  normal.  It 
must  be  admitted  that  the  extreme  division  of  labor  has  wrought 
its  curse  as  well  as  its  blessing.  According  to  the  Massachusetts 
statistics  only  about  one  in  eighteen  of  those  deprived  of  their 
usual  employments  turned  to  another. 

Most  well-to-do  people,  whether  millionaires  or  ordinary 
bourgeois,  know,  in  effect,  absolutely  nothing  about  the  truly 
poor.  Mr.  H.  M.  Hyndman  does:  "I  have  watched  friends  of 
mine  who  have  had  to  go  round  week  after  week,  month  after 
month,  maybe,  seeking  for  a  job.  Such  men  do  not  parade  their 
griefs;  never,  or  very  rarely,  ask  a  middle-class  man  for  help, 
and  would  utterly  scorn  to  beg.  Yet,  as  a  highly  skilled  artisan 
said  to  me  only  a  few  days  ago,  *  I  would  almost  as  soon  go  beg 
ging  bread  as  begging  work;  they  treat  you  as  if  it  were  a  favor 
you  asked.'  I  have  watched  such  men,  I  say,  skilled  and  unskilled, 
too,  and  the  mental  effect  upon  them  of  these  long  periods  or 
short  periods  of  worklessness  is  more  depressing  than  I  can 
describe.  Let  a  man  have  been  never  so  thrifty,  if  he  has  a  wife 
and  children,  a  few  weeks  of  idleness  sweep  away  his  savings; 
then  he  begins  to  pawn  what  little  things  he  has;  later  he  gets 
behind  with  his  rent.  His  more  fortunate  comrades  help  him,  — 
this  is  invariable,  so  far  as  I  have  seen,  among  all  classes  of 
laborers;  and  then,  if  he  is  lucky,  he  gets  into  work  again;  if  not, 
his  furniture  goes,  and  he  falls  into  dire  poverty.  All  the  time 
not  only  has  the  man  himself  been  suffering  and  losing  heart, 
but  his  wife  has  been  fretting  herself  to  death  and  the  children 
have  been  half -fed.  In  the  winter-time,  when  the  uncertainty 
of  getting  work  becomes,  in  most  of  our  great  industrial  cities, 
the  certainty  of  not  getting  it  for  a  large  percentage  of  the 
laboring  men  and  women,  things  are,  of  course,  at  their  worst. 
After  having  vainly  trudged  from  workshop  to  workshop,  from 
factory  to  factory,  from  wharf  to  wharf,  after  having,  perhaps, 
fought  fiercely,  but  unsuccessfully,  for  a  few  hours'  work  at  the 
dock  gates,  the  man  returns  home,  weary,  hungry,  half  dead, 
and  ashamed  of  his  growing  raggedness,  to  see  his  home  with- 


224  ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS 

out  firing  or  food,  perhaps  to  go  to  bed,  in  order  to  try  and  forget 
the  misery  around  him." 

But  is  not  the  condition  of  the  poor  continually  improving? 
Yes,  and  no.  Undoubtedly  the  average  wage- worker  can  earn 
more  pounds  of  wheat,  meat,  and  coal,  and  more  yards  of  cloth, 
by  twelve  hours'  work  to-day  than  fifty  years  ago,  and  probably 
enough  more  to  make  up  for  the  greater  unsteadiness  of  labor 
now.  Mr.  Giffen's  statistics  for  England  are  well  known.  In  the 
industries  figured  upon  by  him,  wages  have  advanced  since 
1820-25  between  10  and  160  per  cent.  The  average  may  be 
about  50  per  cent.  The  English  income-tax,  per  capita,  has 
increased  as  follows:  in  1865-69  it  was  £14;  in  1870-74,  £15  6s.; 
in  1875-79,  £17  4s.;  and  in  1880-84,  £17  2s.  There  are  endless 
figures  of  the  same  tenor,  which  we  need  not  cite.  Mr.  Giffen 
says  that  the  wealth  of  Great  Britain  advances  at  the  rate  of 
three  per  cent  yearly;  population,  only  1.3  per  cent.  How  speed 
ily,  at  this  pace,  may  we  not  expect  poverty  to  be  extinguished ! 
For  this  country  the  improvement  is  at  least  no  less;  we  doubt 
if  it  is  greater.  Mr.  Edward  Atkinson's  roseate  pictures  of  labor 
ers'  progress  are  familiar  to  all.  The  French  savant,  M.  Cheval- 
lier,  has  surveyed,  as  best  he  could,  the  whole  industrial  world, 
and  is  very  sure  that  the  laborer  has  advanced  everywhere. 

In  all  probability  the  figures  usually  presented  upon  this  sub 
ject,  taken  literally  and  for  the  time  to  which  they  relate,  are 
not  false.  Materially,  the  workingman  is  gaining  a  little.  Well 
may  we  rejoice  that  his  wage  is  no  longer  the  scanty  four  shillings 
a  week,  fixed  for  Warwickshire  hands  in  1588,  under  Queen 
Elizabeth's  Statute  of  Labourers.  His  very  discontent,  by  a 
well-known  law  of  human  nature,  proves  that  he  is  profiting. 
Yet  many  representations,  as  commonly  pressed  and  under 
stood,  mislead.  Thus  when  Mr.  Goschen,  a  few  years  ago,  fol 
lowing  Mr.  Giffen's  line  of  argument,1  showed  that  the  number 
of  small  fortunes  and  incomes  in  England  was  increasing  faster 
than  large,  faster  than  fortunes  in  general,  faster  than  popula 
tion,  he  did  not  touch  the  really  poor  at  all.  He  dealt  with  in 
comes  from  $750  a  year  upwards,  estates  under  $5000  in  value, 
house  rents  of  $100  and  on,  small  shareholdings,  small  insurance 
policies,  and  the  like.  But  what  is  all  this  to  the  caravans  of  poor 
1  London  Times,  weekly,  October  9,  1887. 


THE  SOCIAL  PLAINT  225 

fellows  with  starvation  incomes,  or  none  at  all?  Is  it  not  almost 
mockery  to  argue  hope  from  a  more  felicitous  distribution  of 
"estates,"  "rents,"  "policies,"  and  "shares,"  in  Britain,  when 
English  villages,  unable  to  give  employment,  are  emptying  their 
impoverished  sons  and  daughters  into  the  cities  at  the  rate  of 
sixty  thousand  or  seventy  thousand  yearly,  only  to  make  their 
situation,  if  possible,  worse  yet;  when,  as  a  report  of  Mr.  Burnett, 
labor  correspondent  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  assures  us,  the  sweat 
ing  system  is  forcing  men  and  women  to  work  sometimes  for 
thirty-three,  and  even  thirty-six,  consecutive  hours  to  avoid 
starvation,  and  when  the  hungry  hordes  of  East  London  poor, 
but  for  the  Christian  work  done  among  them,  or  for  fear  of  the 
police,  would  speedily  march  to  the  sack  of  the  West  End ! 1 

In  our  own  country  one  hears  equally  inconclusive  utterances 
regarding  the  masses'  welfare.  On  reading  them,  we  sometimes 
really  pity  the  mill-owners,  and  wonder  why  they  do  not  take 
work  as  hands  in  the  mills.  The  common  statement  about  wages 
as  increasing  faster  than  income  from  invested  wealth,  neither 
has,  nor  can  have,  statistical  proof,  because  we  have  no  public 
or  even  private  registry  of  profits.2  So,  too,  the  apparent  fact 
that  a  greater  and  greater  proportion  of  the  nation's  product 
goes  year  by  year  as  wages,  does  not  necessarily  imply  a  rising 
rate  of  wages,  but  may  accompany  falling  wages,  and  it  will  do 
so  if  population  increases  faster  than  wages  fund.  And  when 
wages  statistics  are  adduced  to  show  improvement,  nothing  can 
exceed  the  recklessness  with  which  they  are  sometimes  made  and 
handled.  Wages  of  superintendence  frequently  swell  the  appar 
ent  average.  Account  is  rarely  taken  of  shut-downs  and  slack 
work,  or  of  those  unable  to  find  work  at  all.  The  system  of  fines, 
often  as  vicious  as  it  is  common,  is  also  ignored.3 

In  many  respects,  indeed,  the  toiling  masses  are  no  whit  better 
off  to-day  than  in  England  four  centuries  ago.  The  late  Thorold 
Rogers,  describing  the  Plant agenet  and  Tudor  age,  declares  that 
then  "there  were  none  of  those  extremes  of  poverty  and  wealth 

1  The  Earl  of  Meath,  Nineteenth  Century,  January,  1889. 

2  The  recent  statistics  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau,  1891,  appear  to  be  excel 
lent,  so  far  as  they  go. 

8  These  errors,  which,  of  course,  he  could  not  correct,  must  be  allowed  for  in 
M.  E.  Chevallier's  Les  Salaires  au  XIXe  Siecle,  a  very  instructive  work  on  the 
whole;  the  author  is,  however,  too  hostile  to  cooperation  and  profit-sharing. 


226  ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS 

which  have  excited  the  astonishment  of  philanthropists,  and  are 
now  exciting  the  indignation  of  workmen.  ...  Of  poverty 
which  perishes  unheeded,  of  a  willingness  to  do  honest  work  and 
a  lack  of  opportunity,  there  was  little  or  none.  The  essence  of 
life  was  that  every  one  knew  his  neighbor,  and  that  every  one  was 
his  brother's  keeper."  The  fact  is,  that  while  the  poor  man  has 
been  getting  on,  he  has  not  retained  his  old-time  closeness  to  the 
average  weal.  Let  us  take  a  rubber  strap,  fasten  one  end,  and 
extend  the  other  till  the  length  is  doubled.  If,  now,  we  note  the 
changes  in  the  relative  positions  of  points  between  the  middle 
and  the  fixed  extremity,  we  shall  find  that  each,  though  farther 
from  the  end  than  before,  is  also  farther  from  the  middle;  that, 
besides,  the  points  nearest  the  end  have  moved  least,  those  near 
est  the  middle,  most.  Of  those  between  the  middle  and  the  free 
end,  all  are  now  further  beyond  the  middle  than  before,  while 
each  has  gained  the  more  the  remoter  it  was  at  first.  Much  in 
this  way  has  society  stretched  out  in  the  matter  of  economic 
welfare.  There,  at  the  fixed  point  of  dire  poverty,  stand  the 
mighty  masses,  as  they  have  always  stood.  Our  heaping  up  of 
wealth,  Pelion  upon  Ossa,  elevates  them  no  iota.  Their  neighbors 
have  removed  from  the  dead  point  a  little,  but  the  centre  has 
gone  away  from  them  still  more.  Those  nearer  the  average  at 
first,  and  yet  beneath  it,  have  drifted  further  from  the  fixed 
extreme,  but  not  one  among  them  is  so  close  to  the  middle  as  he 
began.  Only  when  you  pass  beyond  the  average  do  you  come  to 
men  who  have  gained  upon  the  average,  and  these  have  accom 
plished  this  in  proportion  to  the  advantage  which  they  had  at 
the  start.1 

While  the  poor  man  should  be  very  glad  that  his  toil  brings 
him  more  and  better  food,  raiment,  and  shelter  than  once,  the 
fact  that  it  does  so  is  no  sign  that  his  condition  is  "improved"  in 
the  sense  in  which  this  expression  is  usually  understood.  Richer 

1  We  do  not  forget  the  difficulty  of  laying  a  solid  TTOV  <rr&  for  this  analysis. 
The  personnel  of  "the  rich"  and  of  "the  poor"  of  course  changes  incessantly. 
A  penniless  fellow  strikes  "pay  gravel,"  and  is  a  millionaire;  another  man  just 
as  suddenly  falls  from  opulence  to  rags.  Still  a  irov  <rru>  is  attainable.  The 
economic  fortune  of  many  an  identical  man,  family,  or  community,  which  for  the 
last  fifty  years  shows  no  break,  paroxysm,  or  absolute  change  of  any  kind,  can  be 
seen  to  have  altered  greatly  in  relation  to  the  material  welfare  of  the  country  as 
a  whole. 


THE  SOCIAL  PLAINT  227 

supply  for  one's  mere  bodily  wants  does  not  signify  that  one  is 
getting  forward,  or  even  holding  one's  own,  in  humanity's  general 
advance.  Let  man,  as  a  race,  remove  further  and  further  from 
the  condition  of  brutes,  and  let  me,  in  the  mean  time,  keep  as 
near  to  the  average  of  human  weal  as  ever,  —  that  is  what  I 
want.  So  long  as  I  am  falling  behind  the  average  comfort,  wel 
fare,  culture,  intelligence,  and  power,  it  insults  my  manhood  to 
remind  me  that  my  sweat  commands  per  drop  a  little  more  bread. 
"It  is  written,  man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone."  And  in  this 
higher  life,  the  only  one  in  respect  to  which  it  is  really  worth 
while  to  discuss  the  question  at  length,  hosts  of  men  in  civilized 
countries  are  making  no  progress  whatever,  but  are  relatively 
losing  ground. 

To  be  sure,  "the  workman  is  now  a  freeman,  and,  compared 
with  his  progenitors,  an  educated  man.  If  not  taught  in  the 
schools,  he  has  learned  from  the  increasing  progress  which  he 
beholds  everywhere  around  him.  In  the  railway  carriage  he 
visits  the  great  towns;  the  newspaper  gives  him  intelligence  of 
all  that  is  going  on  from  day  to  day  in  the  most  distant  portions 
of  the  earth;  he  hears  discussed,  with  more  or  less  accuracy  and 
information,  the  leading  topics  of  the  age.  So,  life  itself  for  him 
is  a  great  public  school.  But  when  he  beholds  the  vast  accumula 
tion  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  higher  classes,  which  affords 
to  them  luxury,  the  ease,  the  social  distinction,  and  the  means  of 
enjoyment  denied  to  him,  and  when  he  reflects  that  this  wealth 
is  mainly  created  by  the  toil  of  himself  and  his  fellow-laborers, 
he  is  naturally  filled  with  discontent  and  envy,  wherein  may  yet, 
perhaps,  be  found  the  seeds  of  anarchy.  Amid  such  circumstances 
he  is  exposed,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  teachings  of  socialistic 
advocates;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  the  inculcation  of  the  doc 
trine  of  passive  obedience,  and  to  that  blasphemous  as  well  as 
puerile  philosophy  which  would  enjoin  him  to  submit  meekly, 
in  the  name  of  reason  or  religion,  to  a  condition  of  things  which 
is  abhorrent  to  every  sentiment  of  justice  and  to  every  feeling 
of  humanity."  1 

From  this  point  of  view,  the  wages-system  itself,  inevitable 
as  it  after  all  seems  to  be,  is  yet  an  evil,  at  least  in  comparison 
with  the  older  one  of  masters,  associates,  and  apprentices.  It  has 

1  Rees,  From  Poverty  to  Plenty,  pp.  65  seq.  London,  Wyman  &  Sons,  1888. 


228  ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS 

become  the  order  of  things  for  human  beings  to  work  on  a  gigantic 
scale  for  other  human  beings  as  servants,  menials,  serfs,  being 
granted  access  to  the  means  of  production  not  in  their  own  right 
as  men,  but  by  the  gracious  favor  of  their  more  lordly  fellows. 
The  effect  is  to  put  a  stain  upon  toil  as  dishonorable.  If  you  are 
verdant  enough  still  to  speak  of  the  "dignity  of  labor,"  people 
smile  at  you.  That  old  aphorism  has  gone  to  the  rubbish-pile. 
Witness  the  pride  of  many  bourgeois  aristocrats,  who  boast  of  it 
as  a  special  claim  to  consideration,  that  neither  they  nor  their 
ancestors  ever  got  a  living  by  work.  Equally  significant  is  the 
assumption,  both  haughty  and  common,  of  capitalists,  that 
they  are  the  "guardians"  of  labor.  But  every  one  notices  that 
wage-workership  is  widely  regarded  less  humbling  in  proportion 
as  it  ceases  to  involve  subjection  to  individuals.  As  a  rule,  work 
for  a  private  coiporation  even,  is  more  desired  than  work  for  A 
or  B;  work  for  a  great  public  corporation,  responsible  to  society, 
is  still  more  desired;  work  for  churches  and  educational  institu 
tions  is  yet  more  sought  after;  while  work  for  the  state  is  so 
enticing  that  even  at  the  most  moderate  wages,  and  in  spite  of 
an  all  too  insecure  tenure,  a  hundred  applicants  scramble  for 
every  post. 

How  slight  is  even  the  economic  betterment  usually  alleged, 
compared  with  what,  from  foreknowledge  of  the  character  of  the 
age,  one  would  have  been  justified  in  anticipating.  Such  prog 
ress  in  all  the  industrial  arts,  such  cheapening  of  wares,  such 
opening  of  new  continents  in  North  and  South  America  and  in 
Africa  and  Australia,  the  richest  in  bread-yield  and  beef-yield 
of  any  beneath  the  sun,  should,  it  would  seem,  have  annihilated 
poverty.  Yet  the  amelioration  is  only  well  perceptible  for  wage- 
workers  as  a  class,  and  for  the  unskilled  it  is  hardly  this.  Still 
less  can  any  general  law  of  economic  progress,  covering  the 
centuries,  be  established.  On  the  contrary,  the  passing  of  this 
age  of  industrial  advance  and  of  world- wide  land  utilization 
with  so  slight  gain  in  the  ordinary  comforts  of  life  on  the  part  of 
the  laboring  man,  goes  far  to  preclude  all  hope  of  great  improve 
ment  for  him  under  present  economic  conditions. 

Thorold  Rogers  noticed  that  the  trades  correctly  cited  by 
Mr.  Giffen  as  showing  an  advance  of  wages  since  1833  have  each 
had  the  advantage  of  a  trade-union,  and  Rogers  apparently 


THE  SOCIAL  PLAINT  229 

cherished  strong  hope  that  unions  were  to  introduce  the  labor 
ers'  millennium.  I  am  unable  to  share  this  pleasing  view.  Each 
trade-union  will  benefit  its  own  members,  not  unmixedly,  in 
deed,  because  it  always  levels  downward  more  or  less  hi  quality 
of  work  and  hi  wages;  but  trade-unions  often  operate  against 
one  another,  and  they  continually  keep  down  instead  of  elevat 
ing  the  unskilled  masses.  Even  an  industrial  trust,  like  the 
Knights  of  Labor,  cannot  exert  its  central  power  without  forc 
ing  the  abler  and  better  workmen  to  make  common  cause  with 
the  poorer,  so  as  greatly  to  impede  production;  nor  will  such  an 
organization  ever  be  in  condition  to  enforce  a  general  strike, 
because  of  the  "scab"  laborers  constantly  ready  and  competent 
for  so  many  kinds  of  work.  To  exclude  foreigners,  which,  so 
long  as  our  protective  laws  continue,  would  be  just,  would  not 
rid  us  of  "scab"  help.  The  increase  of  home  population  would 
soon  furnish  this.  It  is  hard  to  see  any  likelihood  under  the  pres 
ent  economic  system,  unless  a  good  deal  modified,  of  any  such 
continence  on  the  part  of  the  laboring  masses  in  our  cities  as 
will  deliver  them  for  any  length  of  time  from  the  grip  of  Ri- 
cardo's  iron  law.  Self-interest  will  never  do  it.  This  is  a  point 
where  the  laissez-faire  theory  of  society  most  visibly  breaks 
down.  Morality  and  higher  intelligence  would  do  it,  but  we  fear 
that  these  can  never  be  engendered  in  sufficient  degree  amidst 
the  existing  poverty  and  strife  of  classes. 

One  has  a  right  to  complain  touching  the  idle  wealth  which 
the  present  order  of  things  heaps  up,  and  the  still  greater  quan 
tities  of  wealth  which  are  wasted  out  and  out.  If  any  one  of  our 
numberless  millionaires  wishes  to  turn  some  millions  of  capital 
into  non-capital  wealth  in  the  form  of  needlessly  large  houses 
and  grounds,  gorgeous  equipage  and  clothing,  fancy  wines  and 
viands,  or  works  of  art  never  to  be  seen  but  in  his  own  house, 
there  is  nothing  to  hinder  him  and  much  in  the  way  of  example 
to  tempt  him.  Yet  his  act  abstracts  these  millions  from  the  wage- 
fund  as  permanently  and  effectually  as  if  they  were  sunk  hi  the 
mid-Atlantic,  leaving  many  a  work-seeker  to  hunger  or  starva 
tion,  who,  had  the  man  built  factories  or  railways  with  his  pelf, 
might  have  been  well  off. 

It  is  amazing  in  view  of  this  process,  continually  going  on,  to 
hear  some  of  our  brightest  thinkers  arguing  as  if  poverty  were 


230  ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS 

always  due  to  the  fault  of  the  people  who  suffer  from  it,  as  if 
there  were  some  providence  or  natural  law  which  would  make  it 
impossible  for  one  man  ever  to  smart  for  the  misdeeds  of  an 
other.  Not  seldom  the  exact  reverse  occurs.  This,  in  fact,  is 
one  of  the  very  worst  vices  of  present  industry,  that  it  not  sel 
dom  visits  curses  upon  men  for  results  which  they  had  not  the 
slightest  hand  in  originating.  It  is  said  that  profits  are  justifiable 
because  the  employer  takes  risks,  —  a  position  entirely  just  so 
long  as  the  present  system  prevails.  But  it  is  not  the  profit- 
maker  alone  who  is  involved  in  the  risks  he  takes.  His  help  are 
bound  up  with  him,  and  if  he  is  proved  to  be  rash,  while  he  him 
self  will  only  have  to  surrender  this  or  that  luxury,  they  may 
starve  or  freeze.  When  over-production,  again,  either  alone  or 
aided  by  over-speculation  or  by  those  changes  in  the  value  of 
money  already  referred  to,  has  evoked  a  commercial  crisis,  the 
poor,  who  have  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  causing  it,  are 
its  most  pitiable  and  helpless  victims. 

Socialists  have  said  none  too  much  about  the  cross  purposes 
which,  of  necessity,  prevail  in  our  unregulated  production.  Let 
the  business  man  be  as  careful  as  he  may,  under  the  prevalent 
business  methods  he  cannot  but  take  most  dangerous  risks. 
There  are  now  only  the  roughest  means  for  ascertaining  what 
the  next  season's  demand  for  this  or  that  line  of  goods  is  to  be, 
and  still  poorer  chance  for  learning  what  the  output  by  com 
petitors  is  to  be.  Notwithstanding  all  that  trusts  have  so  ex 
cellently  done  to  forecast  and  regulate  output,1  every  year's 
operation  of  many  a  manufactory  is  to  a  great  extent  a  game  of 
hazard.  Lines  of  business  are  over- wrought,  begetting  glut  and 
necessitating  sales  below  cost;  needless  plant  is  set  out,  which 
must  decay  or  burn.  Losses  in  these  ways  are  crushing,  and  are 
so  much  the  more  sad  in  that  they  are  intrinsically  needless. 
Through  such  waste  of  capital,  interest  rises,  and  wage-yielding 
businesses  which  might  have  flourished  are  prevented  from 
starting.  Prices  fluctuate  abnormally,  deranging  and  discour 
aging  industry.  Mills  that  were  in  operation  close,  the  operatives, 
who  had  absolutely  no  part  in  the  errors  which  brought  the  crisis, 

1  A  merit  of  the  trust-system  usually  not  recognized.  Compare  the  author's 
article  on  "Economic  Reform  Short  of  Socialism,"  in  The  International  Journal 
of  Ethics,  April,  1892. 


THE  SOCIAL  PLAINT  231 

being  the  chief  sufferers.  One  earnest  writer  refers  to  such  dis 
locations  of  industry  all  the  economic  troubles  of  the  time.1 
We  see  here,  again,  that  poverty  does  not  always  befall  men  by 
their  own  fault,  but  very  often  through  the  crime  or  stupidity 
of  others. 

We  have  space  merely  to  name  a  few  unfortunate  features  not 
so  strictly  of  an  economic  nature,  which  attach  to  the  prevalent 
industrial  course  of  things.  WTealth  is  for  man,  not  man  for 
wealth.  It  is  conceivable  that  a  given  line  of  production  should 
favor  the  amassing  of  wealth  in  a  most  eminent  degree,  and  yet 
be  so  baneful  ethically,  for  instance,  as  not  to  deserve  toleration. 
To  be  laid  to  the  account  of  the  existing  economic  dispensation 
is  most  of  the  fraud  and  villainy  in  industrial  life.  If  you  are  a 
grocer,  and  other  grocers  sand  their  sugar,  you  must,  or,  unless 
you  have  immense  capital,  leave  the  business.  If  you  manu 
facture  clothing,  and  the  fashion  in  that  line  of  production  is  to 
beat  sewing- women  down  to  starvation  wages,  you  must  do  thus, 
or  you  are  lost.  You  may  wince  or  protest,  but  your  position  is 
such  that  you  cannot  obey  conscience  without  becoming  a 
martyr.  This  is  why  the  best  men  in  a  trade  do  not  fix  its 
maxims  and  practices,  but  the  worst. 

It  is  a  fact  that  our  present  plan  of  industry  presses  men  with 
indescribably  strong  motives  to  gamble,  to  depress  wages  to  the 
utmost,  and  to  cheat  in  the  quality  of  wares.  Many  resist  nobly. 
Many  others  yield,  but  with  a  stout  inward  protest  which  would 
do  honor  to  them  were  it  known.  People  dislike  to  do  wrong; 
but  in  hundreds  of  cases,  if  not  as  a  rule,  they  must  do  wrong 
or  fail  in  business.  The  meanest  man  undersells  the  noblest  and, 
either  financially  or  morally,  drives  him  to  the  wall.2  Honesty 
is  often  as  uneconomical  in  face  of  the  customer  as  in  face  of  the 
tax-assessor.  Out  of  this  murderous  competition  there  is  a  sur 
vival  not  of  the  fittest  but  of  the  unfittest,  the  sharpest,  the 
basest. 

When  great  wealth  has  been  amassed,  even  honestly,  another 
fearful  pressure  is  brought  to  bear  upon  its  possessor  to  regard 
it  too  much  as  an  end,  and  to  bend  all  his  energy  to  the  further 

1  W.  Smart,  The  Contemporary  Review,  1888. 

2  Read,  in  Mrs.  Helen  Campbell's  Prisoners  of  Poverty,  the  chapter  entitled 
"Two  Hospital  Beds." 


232  ELISHA  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS 

swelling  of  the  pile,  how  inordinate  soever  it  may  be.  He  over 
works  himself;  he  takes  colossal  risks;  he  frets;  he  passes  sleep 
less  nights.  He  forgets  his  obligations  to  family,  society,  and 
God.  He  reads  naught  but  market-reports.  Think,  he  does 
not;  he  only  reckons.  Such  a  life  is  not  rational,  and  its  general 
prevalence  through  generations  cannot  but  make  us  more  a  race 
of  Babbage  calculators  than  of  moral  beings. 

Lastly,  much  of  the  wealth  itself,  invested  in  idle  or  positively 
harmful  luxuries,  is  lost  to  society  as  truly  as  if  sunk  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean.  Any  one  who  will  reflect  can  easily  make  himself 
heart-sick  by  computing  what  a  large  proportion  of  existing 
wealth  has  been  put  into  forms  that  not  only  do  not  afford  wages 
to  labor,  but  are  a  moral  if  not  an  economic  disadvantage  to  the 
owners  themselves.  This  is  not  condemning  luxury,  but  only 
useless  and  damaging  luxury,  which,  of  course,  no  economist  can 
approve;  nor  can  any  one  else  do  so,  without  repudiating  al 
truism  and  going  over  to  the  baldest  egoism  in  ethics. 

I  do  not  believe  that  socialism  is  coming;  but  I  expect  a  moral 
growth  of  society  which  will  bring  with  it  many  changes,  some 
of  them  radical,  in  the  economic  structure  and  methods  of  so 
ciety.  Workingmen's  complaints  are  not  all  wanton  and  they 
cannot  be  dismissed  with  a  puff.  That  pleasing  optimism  which 
views  all  increase  of  wealth  as  inevitably,  under  natural  law,  a 
blessing  to  wage-workers,  is  very  shallow.  Both  the  socialist  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  laissez-faire  theorist  on  the  other  are  in 
too  great  haste  to  generalize.  At  present  our  business  is  the 
analysis  of  social  conditions,  —  deep,  patient,  and  undogmatic. 


EVOLUTION   VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN  POLITICS 

BY   ANDREW   DICKSON   WHITE 

Delivered  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Alumni  in  New  York,  November  23, 
1896;  before  the  Mu  of  New  York,  at  Vassar  College,  in  1906;  before  the  Theta 
of  New  York,  at  Cornell  University,  May  29,  1913;  and  as  a  lecture  at  various 
universities  and  colleges,  among  these  Harvard,  Yale,  Dartmouth,  Michigan, 
Wisconsin,  Roanoke,  and  Butler. 

IT  is  certain  that  the  theory  of  an  evolutionary  process  of 
some  sort  in  the  universe  has  taken  fast  hold  upon  thinking  men. 
Especially  is  this  the  case  as  regards  the  life  of  man  upon  our 
planet.  I  shall  not  dwell  upon  the  relation  of  man's  structure  and 
life  to  the  structure  and  life  of  other  animals,  but  simply  point 
out  the  fact,  in  passing,  that  all  that  great  array  of  sciences  which 
have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  history  of  humanity,  from 
the  earliest  prehistoric  times  in  which  we  can  trace  man  by  his 
works,  show  evidences  of  his  upward  evolution.  You  need  hardly 
be  reminded  that,  from  the  rudest  stone  implements  of  the  drift, 
down  to  the  time  when  recorded  history  opens  with  the  general 
use  of  iron,  we  see  everywhere  the  proofs  of  this  evolution  from 
lower  to  higher:  evidences  that  man  is  not  a  "fallen  being,"  but 
a  risen  being. 

But,  while  a  quiet  evolution  is  easily  seen  in  the  long  series 
of  ever-improving  implements,  laws,  policies,  ideas,  and  institu 
tions,  a  more  violent  process  is  no  less  evident.  More  and  more 
it  becomes  clear  that  the  same  law  of  evolution  extends  even 
through  national  catastrophes.  The  old  doctrine  of  ever-recur 
ring  cycles  of  national  birth,  growth,  and  death,  —  the  doctrine 
of  national  catastrophes  without  any  effect,  save  possibly  to 
point  a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale,  —  has  virtually  disappeared;  more 
and  more  it  is  seen  in  historic  times,  as  in  prehistoric,  that  there 
has  been  not  only  an  evolution,  quiet  and  gradual,  but  also  an 
evolution  in  which  not  only  each  national  struggle  but  every 
national  catastrophe  is  a  part. 

Thinking  upon  the  many  examples  which  might  be  cited,  we 
distinguish  two  uses  of  the  word  "evolution":  first,  its  larger 


234  ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE 

use,  which  includes  every  sort  of  development,  regular  or  ir 
regular,  swift  or  slow,  spasmodic  or  steady;  secondly,  its  more 
restricted  use,  which  confines  it  to  the  more  regular  processes  — 
to  growth  in  the  main  quiet,  even,  and  peaceful.  In  this  latter 
restricted  sense  I  shall  use  the  word  "evolution"  in  this  ad 
dress;  and  I  purpose  to  deal  with  the  distinction  between  de 
velopment  by  growth,  in  obedience  to  improving  environment, 
and  development  by  catastrophe,  —  between  progress  by  evolu 
tion  and  progress  by  revolution. 

Thus  far  the  progress  of  humanity,  as  regards  political,  social, 
and  religious  questions,  seems  to  have  been,  far  more  largely 
than  we  could  wish,  by  catastrophes.  Among  the  examples  of 
this  violent  progress,  let  us  look  first  at  some  which  come  espe 
cially  near  us. 

Take,  first,  the  process  by  which  the  British  colonies  on  this 
continent  were  finally  separated  from  the  mother  country.  Two 
ways  were  before  those  entrusted  with  leadership  in  Great 
Britain  during  the  last  hah0  of  the  last  century;  the  first  was  that 
indicated  by  Burke  and  Pitt;  it  was  large,  just,  mild,  statesman 
like.  Both  these  men  labored  for  the  supremacy  of  right  reason 
in  American  affairs:  Burke's  speech  on  Conciliation  with 
America  is  probably  the  foremost  piece  of  forensic  reasoning 
in  the  English  language,  and  possibly  the  foremost  in  any  lan 
guage.  Could  these  men  of  right  reason  have  had  their  way,  the 
American  colonies  would  have  remained  for  many  years  longer 
attached  to  the  mother  country;  the  sturdy,  vigorous,  English 
and  Scotch  emigration,  instead  of  being  diverted  into  other 
channels,  to  Canada,  the  Pacific  Islands,  India,  and  South 
Africa,  would  have  continued  to  enrich  and  strengthen  the  civil 
ization  of  this  Republic ;  the  separation,  when  it  did  come,  would 
have  been  natural  and  peaceful;  the  population  of  these  states 
would  thus  have  had  a  far  greater  proportion  of  that  Anglo- 
Saxon  element  which  would  have  enabled  it  to  assimilate  the 
masses  of  less  promising  elements  which  have  since  flooded  us, 
—  and  which,  if  we  do  not  act  in  time,  may  possibly  be  the  new 
barbarian  invasion  fated  to  end  this  empire,  as  the  old  barbarian 
invasions  ended  the  Roman  Empire. 

But  evolution  by  right  reason  was  not  to  be :  if  Pitt  and  Burke 
were  apostles  of  evolution,  George  III,  doggedly  conservative, 


EVOLUTION   VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN  POLITICS        235 

and  sundry  Americans,  fiercely  radical,  were  apostles  of  revolu 
tion;  and  the  revolutionary  method  prevailed.  The  result  was 
the  immediate  loss  of  much  precious  Anglo-Saxon  blood:  for 
large  numbers  of  the  best  and  truest  men  and  women,  who  were 
loyal  to  the  mother  country  as  a  matter  of  conscience,  were 
driven  beyond  our  borders;  still  worse,  the  inflow  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  blood  from  abroad  was  stopped  almost  completely. 
Though  men  like  Washington,  Franklin,  Hamilton,  Adams,  Jef 
ferson,  Madison,  and  Marshall,  built  most  nobly  upon  the 
foundations  already  laid,  and  did  their  best  to  prevent  bitter 
ness  between  the  two  nations  becoming  chronic,  every  thinking 
man  will  now  at  least  suspect  that  the  evolutionary  process  — 
the  peaceful  development  of  constitutional  liberty  in  the  colonies 
as  their  controlling  environment,  and  their  gradual  assumption 
of  state  and  national  dignity  —  would  have  saved  great  suffer 
ing  to  mankind,  and  probably  in  the  long  run  would  have  pro 
duced  a  stronger  republic  and  a  sounder  democracy. 

Take  next  the  French  Revolution.  In  the  time  of  Louis  XVI, 
the  greatest  statesman  that  France  had  produced,  and  possibly 
the  most  unsuccessful  that  Europe  has  produced,  was  Turgot. 
He  strove  to  develop  free  institutions  by  a  natural  process,  and 
thus  to  avert  a  catastrophe.  Turgot  saw  that  the  old  despotism 
was  doomed,  that  the  new  era  must  come;  therefore  it  was,  that 
he  proposed  a  system  for  the  general  education  of  the  people  — 
for  the  gradual  development  of  political  practice,  and  for  the 
gradual  assumption  of  the  duties  of  free  men,  first  in  the  prov 
inces,  and  finally  in  the  nation  at  large.  By  comprehensive 
political  measures  he  sought  to  develop  an  environment  which 
should  fit  the  people  gradually  and  safely  to  possess  their  rights, 
and  to  discharge  their  duties.  He  stood  at  the  parting  of  the 
ways;  could  the  nation  have  gone  on  in  the  path  of  peaceful 
evolution  marked  out  by  him,  it  is,  humanly  speaking,  certain 
that  constitutional  liberty  would  have  been  reached  within  a 
few  years,  and  substantial  republicanism  not  long  after.  What 
weary  years  would  have  been  avoided,  —  the  despotism  of  the 
guillotine,  of  the  mob,  of  the  recruiting  officer;  twenty  years  of 
ferocious  war;  millions  of  violent  deaths;  billions  of  treasure 
flung  into  gulfs  of  hate  or  greed ! 

But  on  the  other  side,  against  Turgot,  stood  the  forces  which 


236  ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE 

made  for  progress  by  catastrophe: —  the  ultra-conservatives,  like 
poor  Marie  Antoinette:  the  leading  nobles,  the  leading  church 
men;  and  hating  them,  but  really  their  truest  allies  for  evil,  the 
ultra-radicals,  like  Robespierre,  Danton,  Marat,  and  their  like. 
Both  sets  of  fanatics,  conservative  and  radical,  worked  together 
for  revolution :  —  conscientiously  intriguing,  orating,  lying,  mur 
dering;  creating  an  atmosphere  and  an  environment,  first  of 
fanaticism,  and  finally  of  hypocrisy,  in  which  all  noble  thought 
seemed  to  perish.  In  spite  of  the  work  of  Turgot,  and  of  all 
those  who  caught  his  spirit :  —  men  like  Bailly ,  Lafayette,  Mira- 
beau,  who  exerted  themselves  in  behalf  of  progress  by  evolu 
tion,  —  there  was  progress  by  catastrophe;  —  the  Paris  massa 
cres,  the  La  Vendee  massacres,  the  Avignon  massacres;  the  Red 
Terror  and  the  White  Terror,  Revolutionary  wars  and  Imperial 
wars;  Jacobin  despotism  and  Napoleonic  despotism;  the  first  in 
vasion  and  the  second  invasion,  the  first  indemnity  and  the  sec 
ond  indemnity;  the  Bourbon  reaction  and  the  Commune,  —  the 
whole  line  of  sterile  revolutions  and  futile  tyrannies,  each  bring 
ing  forth  new  spawn  of  intriguers,  doctrinaires,  declaimers,  and 
phrase-makers. 

Take  next  our  American  Civil  War.  That  a  contest  between 
slavery  and  freedom  was  drawing  on  many  years  before  1861, 
all  men  see  now;  but  various  American  statesmen  saw  it  then, 
and  they  tried  to  avert  it.  Only  one  man  presented  a  great 
statesmanlike  measure:  that  man  was  Henry  Clay.  A  son  of 
Virginia,  and  worthy  of  descent  from  the  great  line  of  Virginia 
statesmen,  he  proposed  to  extinguish  slavery  gradually,  natu 
rally,  by  a  national  sacrifice  not  at  all  severe;  in  fact,  by  a  steady 
evolution  of  freedom  out  of  servitude.  His  plan  was  to  begin  at 
a  certain  year  and  to  purchase  those  newly  born  into  slavery, 
until  gradually,  through  the  extinction  of  the  older  members  of 
the  African  race  by  death,  and  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
younger  by  purchase,  slavery  should  disappear. l  It  was  a  great, 
statesmanlike  plan.  It  might  have  cost  twenty-five  millions  of 
dollars.  Revolutionists  on  both  sides  opposed  it:  revolutionists 
in  the  South  would  have  none  of  it,  for  it  was  contrary  to  their 
theory  that  slavery  was  a  blessing,  sanctioned  by  the  Bible, 

1  See  Schurz's  Life  of  Henry  Clay  (Boston  and  New  York,  1887),  vol.  II, 
p.  317. 


EVOLUTION   VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN  POLITICS        237 

and  embedded  in  the  Constitution:  revolutionists  in  the  North 
would  have  none  of  it,  because  it  was  contrary  to  their  theory 
that  one  man  ought  not  to  buy  another.  The  result  we  all  know : 
slavery  was  indeed  abolished,  but,  instead  of  being  abolished 
by  a  peaceful  evolution  involving  an  outlay  of  twenty-five  mil 
lions  of  dollars,  it  was  abolished  by  the  most  fearful  of  modern 
revolutions,  —  at  a  cost,  when  all  the  loss  is  reckoned  in,  of  ten 
thousand  millions  of  dollars,  and  of  nearly,  if  not  quite,  a  mil 
lion  of  lives,  and  these  on  the  whole  the  noblest  lives  the  nation, 
North  and  South,  had  to  give.  Thus  had  we  political  and  social 
progress  by  catastrophe  rather  than  by  growth,  —  progress,  not 
by  evolution,  but  by  revolution. 

History  is  full  of  such  examples:  let  me  give  one,  finally,  be 
ginning  further  from  our  time,  but  ending  nearer  it.  In  the 
latter  half  of  the  last  century  the  Empire  of  Germany  was  the 
very  seat  and  centre  of  unreason  and  injustice.  Its  political  in 
stitutions  were  a  farce,  in  which  not  one  great  national  purpose 
could  be  properly  served.  Its  judicial  institutions  were  a  jungle 
in  w^hich  lurked  every  sort  of  legal  beast  of  prey.  Its  social  in 
stitutions  were  based  on  conventionalism :  its  religious  institu 
tions  were  enveloped  in  an  atmosphere  made  up  of  public  intoler 
ance  and  private  disbelief.  Then  arose  a  true  man,  Joseph  II: 
he  attempted  to  save  the  empire  by  appealing  to  right  reason;  by 
stimulating  thought,  and  diminishing  despotism;  by  infusing 
humanity  into  the  laws,  and  simplicity  into  the  administration 
of  justice;  by  promoting  a  better  education;  in  fact,  by  develop 
ing  an  environment  sure  to  produce,  naturally  and  peaceably, 
a  better  future.  All  his  efforts  were  rejected,  and  he  died  of  a 
broken  heart. 

But  the  progress  he  sought  has  been  accomplished  by  wars 
extending  through  a  whole  century;  by  the  sacrifice  of  innumer 
able  lives  and  untold  treasure;  by  the  humiliation  into  the  dust 
of  those  who  opposed  the  evolutionary  method,  —  indeed,  by 
the  destruction  of  their  rights,  of  their  privileges,  of  their  im 
munities,  nay,  of  themselves;  and,  finally,  by  the  blotting  out  of 
the  old  German  Empire  under  Austria,  and  the  establishment 
of  the  new  German  Empire  under  Prussia.  The  ruling  classes 
would  have  none  of  the  kindly  reasonableness  of  Joseph  II,  the 
apostle  of  evolution,  and  they  had  to  be  crushed  out  and  ground 


238  ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE 

out  of  existence  by  Napoleon  and  Bismarck,  —  apostles  of  revo 
lution,  men  of  blood  and  iron. 

And,  at  this  moment,  we  have  in  one  of  the  greatest  nations 
of  the  world  an  example  of  the  same  revolutionary  process  as 
distinguished  from  the  evolutionary.  In  the  middle  years  of 
this  century,  Russia,  having  been  steadily  developed  in  ways 
more  or  less  rude  by  the  efforts  of  Peter  the  Great,  Catherine 
II,  and  Nicholas  I,  found  itself  under  the  control  of  a  just  and 
kindly  czar,  Alexander  II.  He  accepted  the  spirit  of  his  time; 
freed  the  serfs  throughout  his  vast  realm,  forty  millions  in  all, 
guaranteed  lands  to  them,  abolished  a  mass  of  absurdities,  in 
fused  a  better  spirit  into  old  institutions;  improved  the  laws,  in 
creased  justice,  developed  local  self-government,  and  prepared 
the  way  for  a  constitution.  It  was  my  fortune,  as  a  young  man, 
holding  a  subordinate  diplomatic  position  at  St.  Petersburg  in 
1854  and  1855,  to  see  this  transition  from  the  stern  beneficence 
of  the  first  Nicholas  to  the  more  kindly  beneficence  of  the  second 
Alexander.  Everything  seemed  moving  in  the  steady,  peaceful 
evolution  of  a  strong  constitutional  empire,  when  suddenly, 
between  the  extreme  votaries  of  despotism  on  one  hand  and  of 
nihilism  on  the  other,  all  was  dashed  in  pieces;  the  czar  was  a 
mangled  corpse  in  the  streets  of  St.  Petersburg;  a  policy  of  ex 
treme  reaction  set  in.  In  Russia,  under  this  system,  I  have  re 
cently  lived  for  two  years.  Occasionally,  those  who  favor  a  more 
peaceful  evolution  have  seemed  to  gain  momentary  control,  but 
it  seems  likely  that  the  progress  of  Russia  is  to  be  by  revolution; 
that  the  attempt  to  hold  back  modern  thought  by  dams  and 
bulwarks  will  go  on  until  the  flood  rises  too  high  and  a  catas 
trophe  comes,  —  a  breaking  away  of  dams  and  bulwarks  under 
revolutionary  pressure,  to  be  followed  by  successive  floods  of 
devastation,  reactionary  and  revolutionary. 

The  question  now  arises,  is  this  the  necessary  law  of  human 
progress?  Must  the  future  of  mankind  be  no  better  than  the 
past,  in  this  repect?  An  orator  has  recently  answered  this  ques 
tion  with  a  phrase:  he  tells  us  that  "all  great  reforms  must  be 
baptized  in  blood."  But  is  this  the  law  of  the  future?  There  is 
much,  indeed,  to  support  this  view.  Take  the  simplest  prin 
ciples  of  our  Anglo-Saxon  liberty:  —  before  they  could  be  se 
cured,  blood  was  shed  throughout  England  and  throughout  the 


EVOLUTION  VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN  POLITICS        239 

United  States;  one  king  lost  his  head,  another  his  crown;  and 
another,  the  fairest  colonies  on  which  the  sun  ever  shone.  Take 
the  simplest  thing  in  religion,  the  elementary  principle  of  tolera 
tion:  before  it  could  be  established  the  world  had  to  wade 
through  the  religious  wars  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  —  battles,  massacres,  and  executions  innumerable. 

The  possibilities  of  human  unreason  are  indeed  vast,  and 
might  lead  us  to  take  a  sad  view  of  the  future,  as  we  are  forced 
to  take  a  sad  view  of  so  much  in  the  past;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  much  to  give  us  hope.  The  very  law  of  evolution  itself 
seems  to  encourage  us.  It  would  seem  to  show  us  that  not  only 
better  results  but  better  methods  may  gradually  be  evolved. 
This  better  side  of  human  progress  is  seen  in  every  country:  an 
early  display  of  it  to  our  race  came  in  Great  Britain  in  1688;  it 
came  again  in  the  year  1832,  and  it  has  been  shown  by  various 
peaceful  reforms  during  our  own  history. 

The  whole  question  is  a  question  of  price :  the  development  of 
the  race  is  to  go  on;  the  one  question  is,  what  price  shall  we  pay 
for  it?  Must  we  still  secure  it,  as  so  often  in  the  past,  by  these 
vast  sacrifices,  or  may  it  be  secured  in  the  future  by  reason  and 
the  spirit  of  justice? 

That  eminent  historian  and  political  thinker,  Goldwin  Smith, 
once  said,  "Let  us  never  glorify  revolution."  That  he  was  right, 
the  recent  history  of  various  countries  proves  abundantly. 
Early  in  the  present  century,  glorification  of  the  first  French 
revolution  became  a  French  fashion,  a  political  fad;  in  this 
fashion  and  fad  Thiers,  Lamartine,  and  Victor  Hugo  led.  The 
consequences  were  the  futile  French  revolution  of  1830,  the 
calamitous  French  revolution  of  1848;  the  monarchy  of  Louis 
Philippe,  as  the  result  of  the  first;  the  tyranny  of  Napoleon  III, 
the  Prussian  invasion,  the  surrender  at  Sedan,  and  the  Com 
mune  catastrophe,  as  the  result  of  the  second.  So,  too,  through 
out  the  first  half  of  the  present  century,  on  this  side  the  Atlantic 
there  was  a  steady  glorification  of  our  revolutionary  struggle 
with  England.  What  was  best  hi  it  —  the  great  constructive  part 
by  men  like  Washington,  Franklin,  Adams,  Hamilton,  Madison, 
and  Marshall  —  was  comparatively  little  thought  of.  What  was 
most  orated  upon  in  ten  thousand  little  hamlets  was  the  destruc 
tive  part,  —  the  beauty  of  resistance  to  authority,  the  glory  of 


240  ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE 

breaking  up  an  empire,  the  forcible  wresting  of  human  liberties 
and  rights;  and  verily  we  had  our  reward.  This  glorification  of 
revolution,  North  and  South,  helped  to  promote  our  Civil  War. 
Let  us  then  accept  this  advice  from  one  who  has  labored  and 
sacrificed  much  for  human  liberty  in  its  best  sense;  "let  us  never 
glorify  revolution." 

What,  then,  shall  we  glorify?  What  shall  be  the  ideal  of  po 
litical  conduct?  The  answer  is  simple:  let  us  glorify  the  evolu 
tion  of  a  strong  moral  sense  in  individuals  and  in  nations;  of 
well-being  and  well-doing;  of  clear  and  honest  thinking;  of  right 
reason;  of  high  purpose;  of  bold  living  up  to  one's  thought, 
reason,  and  purpose;  let  us  glorify  these,  let  these  be  our  ideals. 
And  what  shall  be  the  aim  of  practical  effort?  The  answer  to 
this  question,  too,  is  simple:  let  us  strive  to  clear  the  way  for  a 
steady,  healthful  evolution,  for  the  unfolding  of  a  better  future. 

First,  as  to  the  evolution  of  the  individual  man:  While  every 
man  owes  a  duty  to  society,  he  also  owes  a  duty  to  himself  as  a 
man,  and  this  is  not  less  a  duty  to  society;  that  duty  is  the 
evolution  of  his  own  powers,  physical,  intellectual,  moral,  re 
ligious.  The  nation,  after  all,  will  never  be  better  than  the  men 
and  women  who  compose  it.  Remember  Carlyle's  great  ques 
tion:  "How  out  of  a  universe  of  knaves  shall  we  get  a  common 
honesty?  "  Complaints  regarding  the  low  tone  of  public  morality 
and  of  corruption  in  the  public  service  constantly  ring  in  our 
ears :  all  sorts  of  checks  and  balances  are  proposed,  and  these  are 
well;  but,  after  all,  until  there  is  a  preponderating  mass  of  indi 
viduals,  each  detesting  oppression  and  wrong,  each  loving  right 
reason,  each  having  in  himself  a  standard  of  truth  and  justice, 
each  willing  to  fight  or  make  sacrifices  to  maintain  this  standard, 
we  can  hope  little  for  a  better  evolution  as  regards  the  public 
at  large. 

In  this  evolution  of  individuals  as  bearing  upon  that  of  the 
nation,  I  would  say,  that  the  first  thing  needed  is  will-power, 
exercised  first  of  all  in  self-control:  the  great  Dr.  Arnold  gave 
it  as  a  result  of  his  long  and  close  observation  among  young 
men,  that  the  difference  between  them,  which  makes  them  suc 
cessful  or  unsuccessful  in  their  after-life,  is  simply  a  difference  in 
will-power.  Do  we  not  everywhere  see  this?  Do  we  not  every 
where  see  men,  who  know  better,  yielding  where  they  ought  to 


EVOLUTION  VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN  POLITICS        241 

stand  firm,  giving  themselves  up  to  parties,  conventions,  cau 
cuses,  bosses,  demagogues?  Addressing  any  body  of  young  men, 
I  would  say,  begin  here  and  now  your  own  individual  evolution 
by  this  cultivation  of  will-power;  for  it  marks  the  difference  be 
tween  the  strong  man  and  the  weak  man,  between  the  successful 
and  the  unsuccessful.  Give  yourself  the  physical  basis  of  will 
power,  a  strong  body;  give  yourself  the  intellectual  basis,  a  well- 
trained  mind;  give  yourself  the  moral  basis,  standing  firm  among 
your  fellows  here  and  now  for  what  is  decent,  right,  and  just, 
against  the  trickster  and  the  boor;  standing  firm  for  what  is 
best  in  yourself,  against  what  is  worst  in  yourself;  above  all, 
cultivate  your  own  personal  will-power  by  deciding  what  is  right 
for  you  to  do,  and  say,  "I  will,"  —  and  on  deciding  what  is 
wrong  for  you  to  do,  and  say,  "I  will  not";  stand  firm  by  such 
decisions,  —  "firm  as  a  stone  wall."  That  is  not  so  easy  as  de 
claiming  on  what  this  neighbor  of  yours  ought  to  have  done,  or 
what  that  public  man  ought  not  to  have  done;  but  it  is  better,  — 
better  for  the  country,  better  for  you.  If  you  enforce  your  will  on 
this  little  kingdom  which  God  has  given  you,  you  will  find  little 
trouble  in  enforcing  it  throughout  far  greater  dominions.  Thus 
under  the  law  of  evolution  will  come  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  — 
and  you  will  be  the  fittest. 

Take  next  the  material  evolution  of  the  country  at  large. 
That  a  nation  like  this,  comparatively  new,  must  expend  a  large 
part  of  its  labor  in  developing  the  material  basis  of  its  civiliza 
tion,  is  certain.  All  about  us  we  see  evidences  of  this,  —  some 
in  progress  by  growth,  some  in  progress  by  catastrophe.  In 
American  business,  far  too  large  a  part  thus  far  seems  played 
by  catastrophes.  In  the  record  of  demoralizing  speculation,  of 
financial  crises,  of  periods  of  widespread  bankruptcy,  we  have, 
indeed,  a  material  progress  on  the  whole,  but  a  progress  which 
is  not  normal,  —  which  costs  the  happiness  and  lives  of  millions, 
which  grinds  tender-hearted  women  and  children  to  powder  be 
tween  its  upper  and  nether  millstones,  which  fills  lunatic  asy 
lums,  which  ought  to  fill  prisons.  If  we  do  not  develop  better 
methods,  it  is  to  make  the  existing  American  race  short-lived, 
nervous,  dyspeptic,  sure  to  die  out  and  be  succeeded  by  races 
of  tougher  fibre  under  that  inexorable  law,  the  survival  of  the 
fittest. 


242  ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE 

Such  results  of  progress  by  revolution  every  one  can  see  by 
looking  about  him.  Everywhere  are  efforts  to  outwit  the  laws 
of  finance,  which  are  simply  laws  of  nature.  France  tried  this 
twice,  and  thought  she  could  become  rich  by  great  issues  of 
fiat  paper  money;  as  a  result,  came  bankruptcy  and  poverty; 
and,  to  this  hour,  hatred  of  any  tampering  writh  the  currency  is 
burnt  into  the  very  souls  of  the  French  peasantry.  Other  nations 
have  committed  themselves  to  financial  revolutions  in  defiance 
of  the  laws  of  nature,  and  always  with  the  same  result.  Is  it 
not  better  to  labor  for  progress  by  evolution?  Would  it  not  be 
well  to  have  more  respect  for  simple,  straightforward,  deter 
mined,  productive  labor;  less  attention  to  subversive  theories, 
and  short,  doubtful  roads  to  prosperity;  more  honor  to  those 
who  worthily  develop  agriculture,  or  manufactures,  or  trade;  less 
deification  of  phrase-makers,  sensation-mongers,  stump  dema 
gogues,  and  partisan  gladiators? 

The  question  has  frequently  been  asked  whether  our  universi 
ties  and  colleges  produce  their  share  of  business  men;  and  a 
very  high  authority  in  business  circles  has  declared  that  they 
do  not.  But  he  failed  to  note  one  or  two  points  of  great  im 
portance.  First,  university  graduates,  according  to  a  recent 
authority,  form  only  about  one-half  of  one  per  cent  of  the  whole 
population,  while  they  hold  nearly  sixty  per  cent  of  the  more 
important  positions  in  the  country.  Secondly,  he  failed  to  note 
the  fact  that  until  very  recently  our  universities  trained  men 
almost  exclusively  for  what  are  known  as  the  "learned  profes 
sions,"  and  not  at  all  for  business  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word;  whereas,  within  the  last  few  years,  almost  all  institutions 
for  advanced  instruction  have  been  developing  courses  fitting 
men  for  the  pursuits  in  life  which  lead  more  directly  into  great 
business  operations,  and  therefore,  to  act  far  more  powerfully 
upon  material  development  than  heretofore.  Thirdly,  he  missed 
the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  the  prevalence  of  the  old  system  of 
training  hitherto,  every  large  college  class  shows  a  certain  num 
ber  of  men  engaged  successfully  in  business.  Fourthly,  while 
very  few  of  the  colossal  millionaires  of  the  country  have  been 
educated  at  our  higher  institutions  of  learning,  there  is  one 
thing  of  which  every  university  graduate  may  well  be  proud, 
and  this  is,  that,  among  those  who  have  piled  up  great  fortunes 


EVOLUTION  VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN  POLITICS       243 

by  scoundrelism,  there  is,  so  far  as  known,  not  one  university 
graduate :  the  great  plundering  schemes  of  the  country  have  not 
been  conducted  by  men  trained  in  our  universities.  In  this  field 
of  material  progress  our  higher  institutions  of  learning  seem  to 
have  helped  the  better  evolution,  rather  than  those  schemes  and 
enterprises  which  give  the  environment  that  produces  revolu 
tion. 

I  can  think  of  no  better  use  of  the  surplus  capital  of  our  men 
of  wealth  than  the  strengthening  of  these  institutions  by  creat 
ing  or  enlarging  in  them  departments  of  history  and  political 
and  social  science.  In  every  one  should  be  more  and  more 
professorships,  lectureships,  fellowships,  scholarships;  libraries 
having  reference  to  political  economy,  finance,  international 
law,  corporation  legislation;  the  best  methods  reached  in  our 
own  and  other  nations  in  dealing  with  pauperism,  insanity,  in 
ebriety,  crime,  and  the  various  evils  with  which  modern  society 
has  to  grapple.  Here  is  the  true  way  of  providing  for  an  evolu 
tion  which  may  be  relied  upon  to  forestall  revolution. 

Take  next  the  more  special  development :  what  it  is  now  we  all 
know,  —  the  outcome  of  some  good  through  much  evil.  Great 
questions  have  been  settled,  great  questions  are  coming  on. 
These  may  be  divided  between  questions  general,  sectional,  and 
municipal:  glance  for  a  moment  at  each. 

Some  are  already  seeking  the  solution  of  these  questions  by 
revolution:  thus  far,  with  little  apparent  success.  But  who  shall 
say  what  may  come  when  this  nation,  opening  its  gates  freely 
to  the  dregs  of  all  other  nations,  shall  have  a  vast  proletary- 
mass  who  discover  that  the  accredited  political  teachers  are 
giving  them  phrases  instead  of  real  reasonings?  What  shall  be 
done?  I  would  only  say  that  the  evolutionary  method  would 
seem  fitly  begun  by  a  more  thorough  attention  to  political  and 
administrative  subjects  in  our  universities;  by  the  study  of  the 
comparative  legislation  of  different  countries  and  of  the  differ 
ent  states  of  this  Union;  by  careful  study  of  finance,  not  in  the 
special  pleadings  of  demagogues,  but  in  treatises  of  the  great 
masters;  by  a  careful  investigation  of  methods  of  reform  tried 
in  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world.  And  next  I  would  say,  by 
training  men  to  think,  speak,  and  write  on  such  subjects  in 
the  light  of  the  best  modern  thought  and  experience,  —  thus 


244  ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE 

bringing  the  results  obtained  by  university  research  to  bear 
upon  the  people  at  large. 

Take  a  few  typical  examples:  and,  first  of  all,  the  popular 
view  of  the  most  serviceable  anchor  which  is  left  us,  our  judiciary 
system.  The  Supreme  Court  of  this  nation  is  indeed  its  great 
est  jewel;  it  seems  to  have  been  created  by  our  fathers  in  a 
moment  of  Divine  inspiration.  When  that  court  shall  be  gone 
or  discredited,  this  Republic  will  be  really  ended.  Its  subor 
dinate  courts  are  also  excellent.  Our  State  courts  are  most  of 
them  good;  but  after  all  there  is  nothing  more  necessary  in  or 
der  to  keep  our  judiciary,  and  above  all,  our  elective  judiciary, 
what  it  ought  to  be,  than  an  evolution  in  the  people  of  a  higher 
sense  of  the  judicial  function.  More  and  more  we  should  assist 
the  growth  in  the  popular  mind  of  the  truth  that  a  rapidly 
rotating,  poorly  paid,  cheap  judiciary  is  the  most  costly  luxury 
which  a  people  can  indulge  in,  —  that  it  is  folly  for  the  people 
to  pay  starvation  stipends  to  judges  who  protect  our  highest  in 
terests,  while  millionaires  and  corporations  employ  lawyers  who 
have  proved  their  right  to  demand  fees  equal  to  a  king's  ransom. 

Again,  as  regards  crime  and  penalty.  While  the  whole  sub 
ject  should  command  the  attention  of  the  best  minds  in  our 
universities,  more  and  more  there  should  be  evolved  in  the  peo 
ple  at  large  the  idea  of  true  mercy  as  against  spurious  mercy,  — 
the  idea  of  well-considered  mercy  towards  the  great  mass  of 
hard-working,  law-abiding  citizens,  rather  than  a  weak  lenity 
towards  the  vicious  brute  who  lives  by  preying  upon  the  law- 
abiding  part  of  the  community,  whose  profession  is  crime,  whose 
joy  is  murder.  An  eminent  judge  once  said  to  me,  "The  taking 
of  life  by  due  process  of  law,  as  a  penalty  for  the  greatest  crimes, 
seems  the  only  way  of  taking  life  to  which  the  average  American 
has  any  objection."  The  judge  was  right:  there  is  throughout 
this  Republic  a  widespread  legal  superstition  favoring  the  pro 
tection  of  criminals.  Safeguards  which  were  created  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  to  protect  citizens  against  kings,  and  feudal  lords, 
and  robber  knights,  are  now  used  to  protect  criminals  against 
justice.  There  should  be  a  quiet  evolution  out  of  this  supersti 
tion,  an  evolution  of  better  ideas  taking  form  in  better  laws;  laws 
promoting  more  prompt,  more  efficient,  more  common-sense 
dealing  with  criminals,  and  especially  with  professional  criminals. 


EVOLUTION   VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN  POLITICS       245 

The  enemy  of  individual  liberty  to-day  is  not  King  John,  not 
King  George,  not  the  feudal  lord;  but  the  criminal,  and  espe 
cially  the  professional  criminal.  We  have  all  seen  the  sickly  sym 
pathy  with  blood-stained  ruffians,  we  have  all  heard  the  plati 
tudes  confounding  crime  with  misfortune;  to  meet  these,  there 
should  be  developed  more  healthful  modes  of  thought,  —  the 
idea  that  crime  is  not  mere  misfortune,  that  crime  is  crime;  that 
the  criminal  is  a  criminal.  There  should  be  developed  legislators 
who  will  strengthen  the  laws  against  high  crime  and  make  pro 
cedure  more  speedy.1  There  should  be  developed  a  healthy, 
manly,  womanly  determination  to  fight  criminals,  to  exterminate 
them.  The  passion  for  fishing  and  hunting  is  doubtless  a  survival 
of  the  earliest  instincts  of  the  human  race;  let  this  survival  take 
better  forms.  I  trust  there  are  those  here  who  will  go  forth  to 
fish  for  plunderers,  to  hunt  for  scoundrels,  —  vigorously,  merci 
lessly.  I  trust  that  we  shall  have  by  and  by  a  prevailing  senti 
ment  that  the  most  inglorious  thing  a  man  can  do  is  to  prostitute 
his  talents  in  aiding  and  defending  crime  and  criminals,  and  that 
one  of  the  most  glorious  things  he  can  do  is  to  prove  his  manliness 
by  fighting  them.  So,  too,  in  regard  to  public  office:  it  is  well, 
indeed,  in  the  recurring  political  revolutions,  to  fight  demagogues 
and  to  tear  them  from  their  thrones;  here,  too,  that  survival  of 
the  earlier  instincts,  that  passion  for  fishing  and  hunting,  may 
find  a  healthful  satisfaction. 

But  the  more  quiet  evolutionary  process  should  also  be  borne 
in  mind:  more  and  more  should  the  effort  be  to  evolve,  out  of 
the  present  loose  indifference  to  sound  political  ethics,  the  sim 
ple  idea  that  public  office  is  not  a  reward  for  mere  partisan  hench 
men,  not  a  personal  favor  to  be  dealt  out  by  one  individual  to 
another,  not  a  coinage  in  which  tricksters  pay  their  debts  at 
the  expense  of  the  public;  but  to  use  a  truism,  which  from  the 
mouth  of  a  great  public  man  has  become  a  great  vitalizing  truth, 
that  "public  office  is  a  public  trust."  Let  this  idea  be  developed 
through  the  pulpit,  through  the  press,  by  public  meetings.  Thus 
will  come  an  environment  which  will  force  a  better  evolution  in 
politics.  More  and  more  should  we  seek  to  evolve  in  the  popu 
lar  mind  the  simple  idea  that  the  highest  fidelity  is  not  the 
fidelity  of  party  workers  to  party  leaders,  or  of  the  leaders  to 
1  See  an  article  by  Josiah  Flynt  in  The  Forum  for  February,  1897. 


246  ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE 

the  workers,  or  of  both  to  the  party;  but  that  it  is  fidelity  to 
the  community,  to  the  commonwealth,  to  truth,  and  to  justice. 

Take  next  a  local  question :  the  government  of  our  cities.  Here 
we  touch  the  weakest  part  of  our  system.  Our  cities  are  the 
rotten  spots  in  the  body  politic,  from  which,  if  we  are  not  care 
ful,  decay  is  to  spread  throughout  the  whole  system.  For  cities 
make  and  spread  fashions,  opinions,  ideals.  Simply  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  our  cities  are  the  worst  governed  in  the  civilized  world. 
In  them  there  is  the  maximum  of  expenditure  with  the  minimum 
of  good  result.  The  cause  is  not  far  to  seek:  we  are  making  the 
same  mistake  which  ruined  the  mediseval  city  republics :  govern 
ing  them  by  partisan  mobs,  with  no  proper  check  or  balance. 
Under  our  present  system  periodical  revolutions  are  our  only 
safeguard,  —  revolutions  tearing  down  officials  as  soon  as  their 
plundering  becomes  unbearable.  Far  better  would  it  be  to  evolve 
truer  ideas  of  municipal  government.  These  ideas  seem  to  me 
mainly  two:  first,  the  idea  that  cities  are  not  political  bodies, 
that  the  question  in  electing  a  mayor  or  alderman  is  not  what 
he  thinks  of  national  questions,  but  what  he  can  do  as  to  city 
questions.  Simple  as  this  idea  is,  it  is  very  scantily  developed 
as  yet.  The  other  idea  is  that,  as  the  city  is  a  corporation,  as  it 
has  to  do  not  at  all  with  political  interests,  but  with  corporate 
interests,  —  paving,  sewage,  lighting,  water  supply,  repression 
of  crime,  care  of  the  public  health,  public  comfort,  public  in 
struction,  —  those  should  have  some  control  who  have  to  pay 
for  all  these  things.  Why  may  we  not  evolve  out  of  our  present 
city  system,  in  addition  to  a  board  of  aldermen  elected  by  all  the 
citizens,  a  board  of  control  elected  by  taxpayers,  without  whose 
consent  no  franchise  should  be  granted  and  no  tax  levied? 

Take  next  our  constitutional  and  legal  evolution.  Here  the 
field  is  vast,  but  one  or  two  subjects  may  be  taken  as  typical. 
Amid  so  much  that  has  been  gained  by  catastrophes  in  the  past, 
so  much  that  is  preparing  the  way  for  catastrophes  in  the  future, 
are  some  things  evidently  to  be  accomplished  by  the  evolution 
ary  method.  In  international  law  there  has  been  for  several 
generations,  and  there  is  still  going  on,  a  steady  evolution  of 
righteousness,  justice,  and  mercy.  War  has  been  rendered  less 
and  less  cruel,  less  and  less  far-reaching;  and  now  in  our  own 
times  has  been  evolved,  in  better  form  than  ever  before,  the 


EVOLUTION  VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN  POLITICS       247 

principle  of  international  arbitration.  Here,  happily,  our  own 
country  has  taken  the  lead.  Probably  the  future  historian  will 
point  to  the  arbitration  between  our  own  country  and  Great 
Britain  as  the  greatest  thing  in  the  career  of  President  Grant. 
Undoubtedly  the  securing  of  an  arbitration  tribunal  to  settle 
the  Venezuelan  question  will  pass  into  history  as  the  great 
triumph  of  President  Cleveland,  and  the  general  arbitration 
treaty  will  give  glory  to  all  who  aid  in  it.  Here  has  been  prog 
ress  by  evolution:  the  thought  of  Grotius  developing  out  of  the 
thought  of  Ayala  and  Gentilis,  the  thought  of  Vattel  out  of  the 
thought  of  Grotius,  the  thought  of  a  whole  line  of  thinkers  in 
this  field  since,  each  evolving  something  of  good  out  of  the 
thoughts  of  his  predecessors.  A  splendid  growth,  slow  but 
strong,  bearing  the  richest  fruit  of  peace  and  mercy  for  man 
kind. 

So  much  for  our  exterior  policy.  Now  for  a  moment  as  to  our 
interior  policy.  Among  the  vast  number  of  considerations  which 
come  to  me  in  this  field  I  will  single  out  but  one.  I  trust  that  our 
universities  and  colleges  are  to  educate  more  and  more  men  who 
can  bring  the  press  to  bear  upon  the  process  of  interior  political 
evolution.  Especially  is  it  to  be  hoped  that  one  great  gap  will 
be  filled.  Let  me  call  your  attention  to  the  simple  fact  that, 
among  all  the  constitutional  nations  of  the  world,  ours  is  the  only 
one  which  has  in  its  newspapers  no  real  account  of  the  doings  of 
its  national  legislature.  Under  every  other  constitutional  gov 
ernment  on  the  face  of  the  earth  the  newspapers  read  by  the  men 
in  the  streets,  as  a  rule,  give  to  the  people,  when  their  legislatures 
are  in  session,  careful,  consecutive  accounts  of  the  doings  of  their 
representatives.  Our  own  country,  supposed  to  exist  by  virtue 
of  the  eternal  vigilance  of  its  sixty  millions  of  people,  has  for  the 
masses  nothing,  usually,  like  any  correct,  consecutive  summary 
of  the  doings  of  those  who  make  its  laws.  We  see  now  and  then 
some  meagre  account  of  this  or  that  great  measure;  but  the  mass 
of  public  measures,  what  they  are,  who  promote  them,  all  this 
is  mainly  unknown.  A  comparison  of  The  Congressional  Record 
with  the  reports  in  our  daily  papers  will  at  any  moment  estab 
lish  the  truth  of  this  statement.  The  beauty  of  this  Senator's 
curls,  the  size  of  that  Representative's  feet,  the  apparel  of  the 
other  cabinet  officer's  wife,  a  joke  from  this  statesman,  a  sneer 


248  ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE 

from  that,  a  bit  of  balderdash  from  the  other,  —  these  things 
are  telegraphed  immediately.  The  steady  progress  of  our  pub 
lic  affairs,  wrought  out  by  the  earnest  efforts  of  Senators  and 
Representatives,  is  not  telegraphed,  not  even  written.  And  when 
the  accounts  of  public  affairs  are  sent  us,  what  a  travesty  upon 
a  report  to  a  great  people  of  the  doings  of  its  representatives. 
We  have  long  letters  over  Mr.  Blank's  "great  fight"  in  the 
Senate,  the  "great  fight"  being,  generally  let  us  say,  a  gran 
diloquent  wrangle  over  some  appointment  in  a  custom-house.  We 
have  reports,  fulsome  or  denunciatory,  of  another  Mr.  Blank's 
great  speech  on  the  Administration,  in  which  it  is  proved  that 
the  present  or  late  President  is  Antichrist. 

What  we  need,  first  of  all,  and  what  I  trust  the  next  genera 
tion  of  journalists  will  give  us,  are  simple,  fair  summaries  of 
the  doings  of  our  representatives  in  the  national  and  state  coun 
cils.  Such  reports  would  give  us  better  ideas  of  political  per 
spective.  The  country  would  be  finally  educated  into  seeing 
that  some  of  the  "great  fights"  we  hear  so  much  of,  some  of 
the  "greatest  efforts"  of  men's  lives  which  seem  to  resound 
among  the  spheres,  and  some  of  the  so-called  great  men  who 
seem  to  strike  the  stars  with  their  lofty  heads,  are  but  futile 
bubbles  on  the  stream  of  our  national  life;  while  other  things 
and  other  men  of  real  greatness  would  be  revealed.  We  should 
then  come  to  see  the  greatness  of  such  measures  as  the  Morrill 
Bill  of  1862,  which  established  in  every  State  of  this  Republic  a 
strong  centre  for  scientific  and  technical  instruction,  and  so  has 
made  a  far  more  lasting  mark  on  the  destinies  of  the  nation  than 
all  the  fights  of  all  the  political  gladiators. 

Let  me  give  one  more  example  to  illustrate  my  meaning.  Sev 
eral  years  ago,  an  effort  was  made  to  impeach  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  The  current  was  strong,  and  most  party  leaders 
thought  best  to  go  with  it.  One  Senator  of  the  United  States 
refused.  William  Pitt  Fessenden,  of  Maine,  believing  the  im 
peachment  an  attempt  to  introduce  Spanish-American  politics 
into  this  country,  resolutely  refused  to  obey  the  mandate  of  his 
party  as  expressed  at  its  state  convention  and  at  its  national  con 
vention;  resisted  the  entreaties  of  relatives  and  friends;  stood 
firmly  against  the  measure;  and  finally,  by  his  example  and  vote, 
defeated  it.  It  was  an  example  of  Spartan  fortitude,  of  Roman 


EVOLUTION   VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN  POLITICS        249 

heroism,  worthy  to  be  chronicled  by  Plutarch.  How  was  it 
chronicled?  It  happened  to  me  to  be  travelling  in  Germany  at 
that  time,  and  naturally  I  watched  closely  for  the  result  of  the 
impeachment  proceedings.  One  morning  I  took  up  the  paper 
containing  the  news,  and  read,  "The  impeachment  has  been 
defeated;  three  Senators  were  bribed."  And  at  the  head  of  the 
list  of  the  bribed  Senators  was  the  name  of  Fessenden.  The  time 
will  come  when  his  statue  will  commemorate  his  great  example; 
the  time  will  also  come,  I  trust,  when  we  shall  have  a  great  body 
of  citizens  who  demand  honest,  fair,  consecutive  reports  of  the 
doings  of  our  representatives,  and  a  body  of  men  fitly  trained  to 
make  such  reports,  —  reports  as  fair  and  full  as  our  present 
chronicles  of  boating,  base-ball  and  foot-ball,  lawn  tennis,  and 
bicycling. 

But,  in  preparing  the  way  for  political  evolution,  there  are 
some  things  to  be  avoided.  First,  I  may  mention  the  pressing 
of  reforms  for  which  the  necessary  conditions  are  not  yet  de 
veloped.  Frederick  the  Great  said  that  Joseph  II  always  took 
the  second  step  before  he  took  the  first.  Though  this  was  but 
a  sneer,  it  points  to  a  difficulty  in  many  reforms.  Second,  the 
pressing  of  changes  which  are  foreign  to  our  institutions,  habits, 
and  thoughts,  and  which  can  never  become  part  of  our  organic 
growth.  Take  one  proposal  out  of  many.  It  is  sometimes  urged 
that  American  political  life  would  be  bettered  if  the  members  of 
our  Cabinet  sat  in  the  Senate  or  the  House,  as  is  the  case  in  Eng 
land.  The  system  works  well  in  the  mother  country,  why  not 
in  the  United  States?  I  answer,  simply  for  the  same  reason  which 
causes  it  to  work  so  badly  in  most,  if  not  in  all,  of  the  continental 
governments  of  Europe.  The  system  does  not  fit  into  our  insti 
tutions,  which  presuppose  a  separation  between  the  executive, 
legislative,  and  judicial  powers.  In  England,  that  old  system 
has  grown  naturally  out  of  the  earlier  history  and  present  cir 
cumstances  of  the  nation,  and  works  well.  Elsewhere,  as  a  rule, 
it  has  been  a  mere  foreign  expedient,  and  has  worked  ill.  Said 
an  eminent  French  historian  and  statesman  to  me:  "Monsieur, 
under  the  Empire  I  was  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  during 
seven  consecutive  years;  since  that  time  six  years  have  elapsed 
under  the  Republic,  and  France  has  had  seven  different  Ministers 
of  Public  Instruction."  One  of  the  very  best  Secretaries  of  State 


250  ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE 

the  nation  has  ever  had,  Mr.  Hamilton  Fish,  could  not  have 
stood  for  a  day  against  the  badgering  of  the  f actionists  opposing 
him  in  the  national  legislature.  It  is  doubtful  whether  even  such 
Secretaries  as  John  Quincy  Adams  and  Richard  Olney  could 
have  done  so.  Under  the  proposed  system  the  steady  occupation 
of  the  national  legislature  would  be  cabinet-making;  —  every 
thing  else  would  be  sacrificed  to  the  caballing  against  every  new 
Cabinet  as  soon  as  it  began  its  work.  Every  growth,  to  be  nor 
mal  and  healthful,  must,  as  a  rule,  be  an  evolution  out  of  what 
precedes  it,  and,  very  rarely  indeed,  the  insertion  of  any  new 
inorganic  institution. 

Take  finally  the  general  moral  progress:  I  will  not  entangle 
myself  in  the  reasonings  of  Buckle  as  to  the  impossibility  of  any 
progress  in  morals;  I  will  try  simply  to  draw  a  truth  from  a  com 
parison  between  two  concrete  examples.  Just  at  the  end  of  the 
last  century,  two  great  European  states  were  in  dire  trouble: 
Austria  had  rejected  the  efforts  of  Joseph  II,  and  was  once  more 
abject  under  a  stupid  despotism;  Prussia  had  fallen  away  from 
the  theory  and  practice  of  Frederick  the  Great,  and  was  under 
the  second  of  the  only  two  contemptible  Hohenzollerns  in  history. 
Owing  to  the  lack  of  proper  moral  conditions  in  its  people  and 
government,  Austria  came  under  the  heel  of  Napoleon  at  the 
battle  of  Austerlitz;  a  year  later,  Prussia  came  under  that  same 
iron  heel  at  the  battle  of  Jena;  both  nations  lay  utterly  prostrate. 

It  is  clear  to  us  now,  as  we  look  back,  that  the  condition  pre 
cedent  to  an  uplifting  of  these  nations  was  a  thorough  evolution 
of  moral  strength  in  their  rulers  and  their  people :  Prussia  began 
such  an  evolution,  manfully,  nobly,  quietly.  The  moral  system 
of  Kant  was  evolved  —  the  categorical  imperative,  the  ethical 
idea  of  duty,  "thou  shalt,  thou  shalt  not."  It  took  hold  of  the 
foremost  men  in  the  land;  it  was  infused  into  poetry,  especially 
into  the  drama  by  Schiller,  and  into  song  by  Arndt;  it  was  in 
fused  into  prose,  and  especially  into  his  addresses  to  the  German 
nation  by  Fichte.  From  scores  of  professors'  chairs,  from  hun 
dreds  of  pulpits,  from  myriads  of  newspapers,  it  was  implanted 
in  the  thoughts  and  translated  into  the  actions  of  millions  of  men. 
It  gave  to  old  men  the  patriotic  fire  of  youth;  it  gave  to  young 
men  the  steadiness  of  veterans.  The  result  was  the  gradual 
abolition  of  the  serf  system  in  Prussia,  by  Stein;  the  creation  of 


EVOLUTION  VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN  POLITICS       251 

a  nation  trained  for  war,  by  Scharnhorst;  the  physical  harden 
ing  and  strengthening  of  the  people,  by  Jahn;  and,  at  last,  the 
great  uprising,  the  freedom  war  of  1813,  the  battles  of  Leipsic 
and  Waterloo,  the  lifting-up  of  Prussia,  the  coming  of  the 
Emperor  William  and  Bismarck.  And  so  was  evolved  the  new 
German  Empire.  Not  from  mellifluous  popular  oratory,  not 
from  vague  declamations  about  rights,  not  from  hysterical  ap 
peals  to  feeling,  but  from  the  stern  sense  of  moral  duty  extend 
ing  from  king  to  peasant. 

With  Austria  it  was  different :  that  empire  took  refuge  in  sub 
stitutes  for  morality :  instead  of  such  thinkers  as  Kant,  develop 
ing  a  moral  sense,  there  came  ecclesiastical  leaders  who  thought 
to  save  the  nation  by  forcing  all  teachers,  even  those  in  mathe 
matics  and  the  natural  sciences,  to  take  oath  that  they  believed 
in  the  immaculate  conception  of  the  Blessed  Virgin.  Instead  of 
such  statesmen  as  Stein,  working  to  give  a  moral  environment 
to  statesmanship,  there  came  Metternich,  trusting  to  intrigue: 
instead  of  Frederick  William  III,  founding  the  University  of 
Berlin,  where  competent  men  were  allowed  entire  freedom  to 
seek  and  proclaim  truth  as  truth,  there  came  the  Austrian  Em 
peror  Francis,  declaring  that  the  sole  aim  of  university  instruc 
tion  is  to  make  pious  and  obedient  subjects;  instead  of  a  system 
of  instruction  controlled  by  large-minded  laymen,  there  came 
a  system  of  instruction  wholly  in  the  hands  of  priests;  and  so, 
instead  of  the  evolution  of  a  moral  sense,  Austria  had  an  evolu 
tion  of  new  dogmas  and  ceremonials,  and,  instead  of  the  evolu 
tion  of  religion,  an  evolution  of  ecclesiasticism.  The  results  are 
before  us.  WTith  the  hardiest  and  best  soldiers  in  the  world,  Hun 
garians,  Tyrolese,  Croatians,  Austria  has  been  humiliated  in 
every  campaign  since,  —  beaten  steadily  in  her  wars  with  Na 
poleon;  beaten  in  the  struggle  with  her  Hungarians,  and  only 
saved  from  them  by  the  humiliating  intervention  of  Russia; 
beaten  by  the  French  in  1859;  beaten  by  the  Prussians  in  1866; 
then,  after  defeat  in  war,  beaten  just  as  completely  in  diplomacy, 
first  by  Cavour,  then  by  Bismarck:  driven  out  of  Italy,  driven 
out  of  Germany;  forced  to  give  up  her  sway  over  the  old  German 
Empire,  forced  to  give  up  all  part  in  the  new  German  Empire, 
forced  to  give  up  her  position  in  the  front  rank  of  continental 
states. 


252  ANDREW  DICKSON  WHITE 

To  sum  up,  then,  as  regards  the  development  of  a  national 
morality,  Prussia  has  advanced  by  a  steady  evolution  of  the 
moral  sense  in  her  people,  —  a  moral  sense  taking  shape  in  earn 
est  thought,  in  steady  work,  in  heroism,  in  self-sacrifice;  so  that 
she  has  presented  one  of  the  most  glorious  chapters  in  the  history 
of  human  progress.  On  the  other  hand,  Austria  has  progressed 
by  catastrophes,  and  she  has  progressed  somewhat:  she  has  at 
last  granted  toleration,  the  sway  of  the  priesthood  over  education 
has  been  diminished,  her  laws  have  been  bettered. 

In  these  contrasting  examples,  and  in  many  others  which 
might  be  adduced,  are  lessons  for  us:  they  hint  to  us  the  value 
of  the  cultivation,  the  diffusion,  the  exaltation  of  the  simple, 
strong  principles  of  ordinary  morality,  —  of  righteousness,  the 
righteousness  which  exalteth  a  nation.  Every  other  sort  of  thing 
is  prescribed  to  us  as  a  nostrum :  —  putting  the  name  of  God  into 
the  constitution;  sending  the  Salvation  Army  among  our  peo 
ple;  ritualism;  camp-meetings;  sensational  preachers,  and  other 
sorts  of  dervishes;  twelfth-century  methods,  supposed  thirtieth- 
century  methods.  But  when  each  of  these  has  had  its  little  day, 
when  all  have  flickered  out,  there  still  shines  in  the  moral  heaven 
this  great  truth,  written  through  all  history  on  the  life  of  every 
people,  on  the  heart  of  every  true  man,  "Righteousness  exalteth 
a  nation."  Better  customs,  better  laws,  and  a  better  adminis 
tration  of  laws,  —  to  the  evolution  of  these  a  primal  necessity 
is  the  cultivation  of  the  simple,  strong  moral  sense  in  the  child, 
in  the  youth,  in  the  man,  in  the  family,  and  in  the  school,  the 
cultivation  of  righteousness.  Not  the  declaration  of  belief  in 
this  or  that  theological  statement,  but  righteousness,  which 
means  "right-ness,"  right-doing,  right  dealing,  —  the  cultiva 
tion  of  this  in  the  individual  man  and  in  society. 

Here,  then,  gentlemen,  is  the  application  of  the  doctrine  I 
would  lay  before  you  to-day.  During  the  months  recently  passed, 
with  vision  more  or  less  clear  we  have  looked  over  the  edge  of 
the  abyss  into  which  every  other  great  republic  thus  far  has 
been  plunged  to  its  ruin.  We  have  been  rescued  by  a  great  and 
inspiring  effort,  an  effort  worthy  of  the  best  days  of  any  republic. 
How  shall  that  effort  be  continued?  Some  of  you  are  fitted  to 
work  in  the  more  quiet  fields;  fitted  to  discover  truth,  to  unveil 
beauty,  to  develop  goodness,  to  strengthen  justice,  to  produce 


EVOLUTION   VS.  REVOLUTION,  IN   POLITICS       253 

the  environment  which  will  aid  in  evolving  a  better  future.  Some 
are  to  strive  in  the  more  stormy  fields;  to  promote  the  better 
evolution  more  directly,  in  open  combat  with  wrong,  in  open 
wrestle  with  unreason,  in  open  battle  with  demagogues,  in 
courts,  in  caucuses,  in  legislatures,  in  councils,  in  the  pulpit, 
in  the  forum,  through  the  press. 

My  first  word  to  both  these  classes  is :  strive  to  secure  progress 
toward  a  better  and  nobler  future,  by  processes  evolutionary 
rather  than  revolutionary;  by  study,  rather  than  by  dogmatic 
assertion;  by  argument,  rather  than  by  declamation;  by  appeals 
to  reason,  rather  than  to  prejudice;  and  to  the  nobler  construc 
tive  imagination,  rather  than  to  the  "sensation  sickness."  My 
last  word  is,  do  not  lend  yourselves  to  unreason  or  injustice;  do 
not  prostitute  your  genius  or  talents;  keep  your  faith  in  human 
liberty;  keep  your  courage  amid  the  storms  of  Democracy;  never 
despair  of  the  Republic. 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE 

BY   JOHN   JAY   CHAPMAN 

Delivered  before  the  Zeta  of  New  York,  at  Hobart  College,  June  20,  1900. 
From  Learning  and  Other  Essays,  by  John  J.  Chapman,  published  by  Moffat, 
Yard  and  Company. 

IF  one  could  stand  on  the  edge  of  the  moon  and  look  down 
through  a  couple  of  thousand  years  on  human  politics,  it  would 
be  apparent  that  everything  that  happened  on  the  earth  is 
directly  dependent  on  everything  else  that  happened  there. 
Whether  the  Italian  peasant  shall  eat  salt  with  his  bread,  de 
pends  upon  Bismarck.  Whether  the  prison  system  of  Russia 
shall  be  improved,  depends  upon  the  ministry  of  Great  Britain. 
If  Lord  Beaconsfield  is  in  power,  there  is  no  leisure  in  Russia  for 
domestic  reform.  The  lash  is  everywhere  lifted  in  a  security  fur 
nished  by  the  concurrence  of  all  the  influences  upon  the  globe, 
that  favor  coercion.  In  like  manner,  the  good  things  that  happen 
are  each  the  product  of  all  extant  conditions.  Constitutional 
government  in  England  qualifies  the  whole  of  western  Europe. 
Our  slaves  were  not  set  free  without  the  assistance  of  every 
liberal  mind  in  Europe;  and  the  thoughts  which  we  think  in  our 
closet  affect  the  fate  of  the  Boer  in  South  Africa.  That  Tolstoy 
is  to-day  living  unmolested  upon  his  farm  instead  of  serving  in  a 
Siberian  mine,  that  Dreyfus  is  alive  and  not  dead,  is  due  directly 
to  the  people  in  this  audience  and  to  others  like  them  scattered 
over  Europe  and  America. 

The  effect  of  enlightenment  on  tyranny  is  not  merely  to  make 
the  tyrant  afraid  to  be  cruel,  it  makes  him  not  want  to  be  cruel. 
It  makes  him  see  what  cruelty  is.  And  reciprocally  the  effect  of 
cruelty  on  enlightenment  is  to  make  that  enlightenment  grow 
dim.  It  prevents  men  from  seeing  what  cruelty  is. 

The  Czar  of  Russia  cannot  get  rid  of  your  influence,  nor  you 
of  his.  Every  ukase  he  signs  makes  allowance  for  you,  and  on 
the  other  hand,  the  whole  philosophy  of  your  life  is  tinged  by 
him.  You  believe  that  the  abuses  under  the  Russian  govern- 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE  255 

ment  are  inscrutably  different  from  and  worse  than  our  own; 
whereas  both  sets  of  atrocities  are  identical  in  principle,  and  are 
more  alike  in  fact,  in  taste  and  smell  and  substance  than  your 
prejudice  is  willing  to  admit.  The  existence  of  Russia  narrows 
America's  philosophy,  and  misconduct  by  a  European  power 
may  be  seen  reflected  in  the  moral  tone  of  your  clergyman  on 
the  following  day.  More  Americans  have  abandoned  their  faith 
in  free  government  since  England  began  to  play  the  tyrant  than 
there  were  colonists  in  the  country  in  1776. 

Europe  is  all  one  family,  and  speaks,  one  might  say,  the  same 
language.  The  life  that  has  been  transplanted  to  North  America 
during  the  last  three  centuries,  is  European  life.  From  your 
position  on  the  moon  you  would  not  be  able  to  understand  what 
the  supposed  differences  were  between  European  and  American 
things,  that  the  Americans  make  so  much  fuss  over.  You  would 
say,  "I  see  only  one  people,  splashed  over  different  continents. 
The  problems  they  talk  about,  the  houses  they  live  in,  the  clothes 
they  wear,  seem  much  alike.  Their  education  and  catch- words 
are  identical.  They  are  the  children  of  the  Classics,  of  Chris 
tianity,  and  of  the  Revival  of  Learning.  They  are  homogeneous, 
and  they  are  growing  more  homogeneous." 

The  subtle  influences  that  modern  nations  exert  over  one 
another  illustrate  the  unity  of  life  on  the  globe.  But  if  we 
turn  to  ancient  history  we  find  in  its  bare  outlines  staggering 
proof  of  the  interdependence  of  nations.  The  Greeks  were  wiped 
out.  They  could  not  escape  their  contemporaries  any  more 
than  we  can  escape  the  existence  of  the  Malays.  Israel  could 
not  escape  Assyria,  nor  Assyria  Persia,  nor  Persia  Macedonia, 
nor  Macedonia  Rome,  nor  Rome  the  Goths.  Life  is  not  a  board 
ing  school  where  a  bad  boy  can  be  dismissed  for  the  benefit  of 
the  rest.  He  remains.  He  must  be  dealt  with.  He  is  as  much  here 
as  we  are  ourselves.  The  whole  of  Europe  and  Asia  and  South 
America  and  every  Malay  and  every  Chinaman,  Hindoo,  Tartar, 
and  Tagal  —  of  such  is  our  civilization. 

Let  us  for  the  moment  put  aside  every  dictate  of  religion  and 
political  philosophy.  Let  us  discard  all  prejudice  and  all  love. 
Let  us  regard  nothing  except  facts.  Does  not  the  coldest  con 
clusion  of  science  announce  the  fact  that  the  world  is  peopled, 
and  that  every  individual  of  that  population  has  an  influence 


256  JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN 

as  certain  and  far  more  discoverable  than  the  influence  of  the 
weight  of  his  body  upon  the  solar  system? 

A  Chinaman  lands  in  San  Francisco.  The  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  begins  to  rock  and  tremble.  What  shall  we 
do  with  him?  The  deepest  minds  of  the  past  must  be  ransacked 
to  the  bottom  to  find  an  answer.  Every  one  of  seventy  million 
Americans  must  pass  through  a  throe  of  thought  that  leaves  him 
a  modified  man.  The  same  thing  is  true  when  the  American  lands 
in  China.  These  creatures  have  thus  begun  to  think  of  each 
other.  It  is  unimaginable  that  they  should  not  hereafter  inces 
santly  and  never-endingly  continue  to  think  of  each  other.  And 
out  of  their  thoughts  grows  the  destiny  of  mankind. 

We  have  an  inherited  and  stupid  notion  that  the  East  does 
not  change.  If  Japan  goes  through  a  transformation  scene  under 
our  eyes,  we  still  hold  to  our  prejudice  as  to  the  immutability  of 
the  Chinese.  If  our  own  people  and  the  European  nations  seem 
to  be  meeting  and  surging  and  re-appearing  in  unaccustomed 
roles  every  ten  years,  till  modern  history  looks  like  a  fancy  ball, 
we  still  go  on  muttering  some  old  ignorant  shibboleth  about 
East  and  West,  Magna  Charta,  the  Indian  Mutiny,  and  Ma 
homet.  The  chances  are  that  England  will  be  dead-letter,  and 
Russia  progressive,  before  we  have  done  talking.  Of  a  truth, 
when  we  consider  the  rapidity  of  visible  change  and  the  ampli 
tude  of  time  —  for  there  is  plenty  of  time  —  we  need  not  despair 
of  progress. 

The  true  starting-point  for  the  world's  progress  will  never  be 
reached  by  any  nation  as  a  whole.  It  exists  and  has  been  reached 
in  the  past  as  it  will  in  the  future  by  individuals  scattered  here 
and  there  in  every  nation.  It  is  reached  by  those  minds  which 
insist  on  seeing  conditions  as  they  are,  and  which  cannot  confine 
their  thoughts  to  their  own  kitchen,  or  to  their  own  creed,  or  to 
their  own  nation.  You  will  think  I  have  in  mind  poets  and  philo 
sophers,  for  these  men  take  humanity  as  their  subject,  and  deal 
in  the  general  stuff  of  human  nature.  But  the  narrow  spirit  in 
which  they  often  do  this  cuts  down  their  influence  to  parish 
limits.  I  mean  rather  those  men  who  in  private  life  act  out  their 
thoughts  and  feelings  as  to  the  unity  of  human  life,  —  those  same 
thoughts  which  the  poets  and  philosophers  have  expressed  in 
their  plays,  their  sayings,  and  their  visions.  There  have  always 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE  257 

been  men  who  in  their  daily  life  have  fulfilled  those  intimations 
and  instincts  which,  if  reduced  to  a  statement,  receive  the  names 
of  poetry  and  religion.  These  men  are  the  cart-horses  of  progress, 
they  devote  their  lives  to  doing  things  which  can  only  be  justi 
fied  or  explained  by  the  highest  philosophy.  They  proceed  as  if 
all  men  were  their  brothers.  These  practical  philanthropists  go 
plodding  on  through  each  century  and  leave  the  bones  of  their 
character  mingled  with  the  soil  of  their  civilization. 

See  how  large  the  labors  of  such  men  look  when  seen  in  his 
toric  perspective.  They  have  changed  the  world's  public  opinion. 
They  have  moulded  the  world's  institutions  into  forms  expres 
sive  of  their  will.  I  ask  your  attention  to  one  of  their  achieve 
ments.  We  have  one  province  of  conduct  in  which  the  visions 
of  the  poets  have  been  reduced  to  practice  —  yes,  erected  into 
a  department  of  government  —  through  the  labors  of  the  phil 
anthropists.  They  have  established  the  hospital  and  the  re 
formatory;  and  these  visible  bastions  of  philosophy  hold  now 
a  more  unchallenged  place  in  our  civilization  than  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  on  which  they  comment. 

The  truth  which  the  philanthropists  of  all  ages  have  felt  is 
that  the  human  family  was  a  unit;  and  this  truth,  being  as  deep 
as  human  nature,  can  be  expressed  in  every  philosophy  —  even 
in  the  inverted  utilitarianism  now  in  vogue.  The  problem  how 
to  treat  insane  people  and  criminals  has  been  solved  to  this  ex 
tent,  that  every  one  agrees  that  nothing  must  be  done  to  them 
which  injures  the  survivors.  That  is  the  reason  we  do  not  kill 
them.  It  is  unpleasant  to  have  them  about,  and  this  unpleas 
antness  can  be  cured  only  by  our  devotion  to  them.  We  must 
either  help  the  wretched  or  we  ourselves  become  degenerate. 
They  have  thus  become  a  positive  means  of  civilizing  the  modern 
world;  for  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  has  led  men  to  deal 
with  this  problem  in  the  only  practical  way. 

Put  a  Chinaman  into  your  hospital  and  he  will  be  cared  for. 
You  may  lie  awake  at  night  drawing  up  reasons  for  doing  some 
thing  different  with  this  disgusting  Chinaman  — •  who,  some 
how,  is  in  the  world  and  is  thrown  into  your  care,  your  hospital, 
your  thought  —  but  the  machinery  of  your  own  being  is  so 
constructed  that  if  you  take  any  other  course  with  him  than  that 
which  you  take  with  your  own  people,  your  institution  will  in- 


258  JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN 

stantly  lose  its  meaning;  you  would  not  have  the  face  to  beg 
money  for  its  continuance  in  the  following  year.  The  logic  of 
this,  which,  if  you  like,  is  the  logic  of  self -protection  under  the 
illusion  of  self-sacrifice,  is  the  logic  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  all 
human  progress.  I  dislike  to  express  this  idea  in  its  meanest 
form;  but  I  know  there  are  some  professors  of  political  econ 
omy  here,  and  I  wish  to  be  understood.  The  utility  of  hospitals 
is  not  to  cure  the  sick.  It  is  to  teach  mercy.  The  veneration  for 
hospitals  is  not  accorded  to  them  because  they  cure  the  sick,  but 
because  they  stand  for  love,  and  responsibility. 

The  appeal  of  physical  suffering  makes  the  strongest  attack 
on  our  common  humanity.  Even  zealots  and  sectaries  are 
touched.  The  practice  and  custom  of  this  kind  of  mercy  have 
therefore  become  established,  while  other  kinds  of  mercy  which 
require  more  imagination  are  still  in  their  infancy.  But  at  the 
bottom  of  every  fight  for  principle  you  will  find  the  same  senti 
ment  of  mercy.  If  you  take  a  slate  and  pencil  and  follow  out  the 
precise  reasons  and  consequences  of  the  thing,  you  will  always 
find  that  a  practical  and  effective  love  for  mankind  is  working 
out  a  practical  self-sacrifice.  The  average  man  cannot  do  the 
sum,  he  does  not  follow  the  reasoning,  but  he  knows  the  answer. 
The  deed  strikes  into  his  soul  with  a  mathematical  impact,  and 
he  responds  like  a  tuning-fork  when  its  note  is  struck. 

Every  one  knows  that  self-sacrifice  is  a  virtue.  The  child 
takes  his  nourishment  from  the  tale  of  heroism  as  naturally  as 
he  takes  milk.  He  feels  that  the  deed  was  done  for  his  sake.  He 
adopts  it;  it  is  his  own.  The  nations  have  always  stolen  their 
myths  from  one  another,  and  claimed  each  other's  heroes.  It 
has  required  all  the  world's  heroes  to  make  the  world's  ear  sensi 
tive  to  new  statements,  illustrations  and  applications  of  the 
logic  of  progress.  Yet  their  work  has  been  so  well  done  that  all 
of  us  respond  to  the  old  truths  in  however  new  a  form.  Not 
France  alone  but  all  modern  society  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  to 
Zola  for  his  rescue  of  Dreyfus.  The  whole  world  would  have 
been  degraded  and  set  back,  the  whole  world  made  less  decent 
and  habitable  but  fcr  those  few  Frenchmen  who  took  their  stand 
against  corruption. 

Now  the  future  of  civil  society  upon  the  earth  depends  upon 
the  application  to  international  politics  of  this  familiar  idea, 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE  259 

which  we  see  prefigured  in  our  mythology,  and  monumental 
ized  in  our  hospitals  —  the  principle  that  what  is  done  for  one 
is  done  for  all.  When  you  say  a  thing  is  "right,"  you  appeal 
to  mankind.  What  you  mean  is  that  everyone  is  at  stake.  Your 
attack  upon  wrong  amounts  to  saying  that  some  one  has  been 
left  out  in  the  calculation.  Both  at  home  and  abroad  you  are 
always  pleading  for  mercy,  and  the  plea  gains  such  a  wide  re 
sponse  that  some  tyranny  begins  to  totter,  and  its  engines  are 
turned  upon  you  to  get  you  to  stop.  This  outcry  against  you 
is  the  measure  of  your  effectiveness.  If  you  imitate  Zola  and 
attack  some  nuisance  in  this  town  to-morrow,  you  will  bring  on 
every  symptom  and  have  every  experience  of  the  Dreyfus  affair. 
The  cost  is  the  same,  for  cold  looks  are  worse  than  imprisonment. 
The  emancipation  is  the  same,  for  if  a  man  can  resist  the  in 
fluences  of  his  townsfolk,  if  he  can  cut  free  from  the  tyranny  of 
neighborhood  gossip,  the  world  has  no  terrors  for  him;  there  is 
no  second  inquisition.  The  public  influence  is  the  same,  for  every 
citizen  can  thereafter  look  a  town  officer  in  the  face  with  more 
self-respect.  But  not  to  townsmen,  nor  to  neighboring  towns, 
nor  to  Parisians  is  this  force  confined.  It  goes  out  in  all  directions, 
continuously.  The  man  is  in  communication  with  the  world. 
This  impulse  of  communication  with  all  men  is  at  the  bottom  of 
every  ambition.  The  injustice,  cruelty,  oppression  in  the  world 
are  all  different  forms  of  the  same  non-conductor,  that  prevents 
utterances,  that  stops  messages,  that  strikes  dumb  the  speaker 
and  deafens  the  listener.  You  will  find  that  it  makes  no  differ 
ence  whether  the  non-conductor  be  a  selfish  oligarchy,  a  military 
autocracy,  or  a  commercial  ring.  The  voice  of  humanity  is 
stifled  by  corruption:  and  corruption  is  only  an  evil  because  it 
stifles  men. 

Try  to  raise  a  voice  that  shall  be  heard  from  here  to  Albany 
and  watch  what  it  is  that  comes  forward  to  shut  off  the  sound. 
It  is  not  a  German  sergeant,  nor  a  Russian  officer  of  the  pre 
cinct.  It  is  a  note  from  a  friend  of  your  father's  offering  you  a 
place  in  his  office.  This  is  your  warning  from  the  secret  police. 
Why,  if  any  of  you  young  gentlemen  have  a  mind  to  get  heard 
a  mile  off,  you  must  make  a  bonfire  of  your  reputation,  and  a 
close  enemy  of  most  men  who  wish  you  well. 

And  what  will  you  get  in  return?    Well,  if  I  must  for  the 


260  JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN 

benefit  of  the  economist,  charge  you  up  with  some  selfish  gain, 
I  will  say  that  you  get  the  satisfaction  of  having  been  heard, 
and  that  this  is  the  whole  possible  scope  of  human  ambition. 

When  I  was  asked  to  make  this  address  I  wondered  what  I 
had  to  say  to  you  boys  who  are  graduating.  And  I  think  I  have 
one  thing  to  say.  If  you  wish  to  be  useful,  never  take  a  course 
that  will  silence  you.  Refuse  to  learn  anything  that  you  cannot 
proclaim.  Refuse  to  accept  anything  that  implies  collusion, 
whether  it  be  a  clerkship  or  a  curacy,  a  legal  fee  or  a  post  in  a 
university.  Retain  the  power  of  speech,  no  matter  what  other 
power  you  lose.  If  you  can  take  this  course,  and  in  so  far  as  you 
take  it,  you  will  bless  this  country.  In  so  far  as  you  depart  from 
this  course  you  become  dampers,  mutes,  and  hooded  execution 
ers.  As  for  your  own  private  character,  it  will  be  preserved  by 
such  a  course.  Crime  you  cannot  commit,  for  crime  gags  you. 
Collusion  with  any  abuse  gags  you.  As  a  practical  matter  a  mere 
failure  to  speak  out  upon  occasions  where  no  opinion  is  asked  or 
expected  of  you,  and  when  the  utterance  of  an  uncalled-for  sus 
picion  is  odious,  will  often  hold  you  to  a  concurrence  in  palpable 
iniquity.  It  will  bind  and  gag  you  and  lay  you  dumb  and  in 
shackles  like  the  veriest  serf  in  Russia.  I  give  you  this  one  rule 
of  conduct.  Do  what  you  will,  but  speak  out  always.  Be 
shunned,  be  hated,  be  ridiculed,  be  scared,  be  in  doubt,  but  don't 
be  gagged. 

The  choice  of  Hercules  was  made  when  Hercules  was  a  lad. 
It  cannot  be  made  late  in  life.  It  will  perhaps  come  for  each 
one  of  you  within  the  next  eighteen  months.  I  have  seen  ten 
years  of  young  men  who  rush  out  into  the  world  with  their  mes 
sages,  and  when  they  find  how  deaf  the  world  is,  they  think  they 
must  save  their  strength  and  wait.  They  believe  that  after  a 
while  they  will  be  able  to  get  up  on  some  little  eminence  from 
which  they  can  make  themselves  heard.  "In  a  few  years,"  rea 
sons  one  of  them,  "I  shall  have  gained  a  standing,  and  then  I 
will  use  my  power  for  good."  Next  year  comes,  and  with  it  a 
strange  discovery.  The  man  has  lost  his  horizon  of  thought.  His 
ambition  has  evaporated;  he  has  nothing  to  say.  The  great  oc 
casion  that  was  to  have  let  him  loose  on  society  was  some  little 
occasion  that  nobody  saw,  some  moment  in  which  he  decided 
to  obtain  a  standing.  The  great  battle  of  a  lifetime  has  been 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE  261 

fought  and  lost  over  a  silent  scruple.  But  for  this,  the  man 
might,  within  a  few  years,  have  spoken  to  the  nation  with  the 
voice  of  an  archangel.  What  was  he  waiting  for?  Did  he  think 
that  the  laws  of  nature  were  to  be  changed  for  him?  Did  he 
think  that  a  "notice  of  trial"  would  be  served  on  him?  Or  that 
some  spirit  would  stand  at  his  elbow  and  say,  "Now's  your 
time"?  The  time  of  trial  is  always.  Now  is  the  appointed  time. 
And  the  compensation  for  beginning  at  once  is  that  your  voice 
carries  at  once.  You  do  not  need  a  standing.  It  would  not  help 
you.  Within  less  time  than  you  can  see  it,  you  will  have  been 
heard.  The  air  is  filled  with  sounding  boards  and  the  echoes  are 
flying.  It  is  ten  to  one  that  you  have  but  to  lift  your  voice  to 
be  heard  in  California,  and  that  from  where  you  stand.  A  bold 
plunge  will  teach  you  that  the  visions  of  the  unity  of  human  na 
ture  which  the  poets  have  sung,  were  not  fictions  of  their  im 
agination,  but  a  record  of  what  they  saw.  Deal  with  the  world, 
and  you  will  discover  their  reality.  Speak  to  the  world,  and  you 
will  hear  their  echo. 

Social  and  business  prominence  look  like  advantages,  and  so 
they  are  if  you  want  money.  But  if  you  want  moral  influence 
you  may  bless  God  you  have  not  got  them.  They  are  the  pay 
ment  with  which  the  world  subsidizes  men  to  keep  quiet,  and 
there  is  no  subtlety  or  cunning  by  which  you  can  get  them  with 
out  paying  in  silence.  This  is  the  great  law  of  humanity,  that 
has  existed  since  history  began,  and  will  last  while  man  lasts  — 
evil,  selfishness,  and  silence  are  one  thing. 

The  world  is  learning,  largely  through  American  experience, 
that  freedom  in  the  form  of  a  government  is  no  guarantee  against 
abuse,  tyranny,  cruelty,  and  greed.  The  old  sufferings,  the  old 
passions  are  in  full  blast  among  us.  What,  then,  are  the  advan 
tages  of  self-government?  The  chief  advantage  is  that  self-gov 
ernment  enables  a  man  in  his  youth,  in  his  own  town,  within 
the  radius  of  his  first  public  interests,  to  fight  the  important 
battle  of  his  life  while  his  powers  are  at  their  strongest,  and  the 
powers  of  oppression  are  at  their  weakest.  If  a  man  acquires  the 
power  of  speech  here,  if  he  says  what  he  means  now,  if  he  makes 
his  point  and  dominates  his  surroundings  at  once,  his  voice  will, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  be  heard  instantly  in  a  very  wide  radius. 
And  so  he  walks  up  into  a  new  sphere  and  begins  to  accomplish 


JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN 

great  things.  He  does  this  through  the  very  force  of  his  insist 
ence  on  the  importance  of  small  things.  The  reason  for  his 
graduation  is  not  far  to  seek.  A  man  cannot  reach  the  hearts  of 
his  townsfolks,  without  using  the  whole  apparatus  of  the  world 
of  thought.  He  cannot  tell  or  act  the  truth  in  his  own  town  with 
out  enlisting  every  power  for  truth,  and  setting  in  vibration  the 
cords  that  knit  that  town  into  the  world's  history.  He  is  forced 
to  find  and  strike  the  same  note  which  he  would  use  on  some 
great  occasion  when  speaking  for  all  mankind.  A  man  who  has 
won  a  town-fight  is  a  veteran,  and  our  country  to-day  is  full  of 
these  young  men.  To-morrow  their  force  will  show  in  national 
politics,  and  in  that  moment  the  fate  of  the  Malay,  the  food  of 
the  Russian  prisoner,  the  civilization  of  South  Africa  and  the 
future  of  Japan  will  be  seen  to  have  been  in  issue.  These  world 
problems  are  now  being  settled  in  the  contest  over  the  town- 
pump  in  a  Western  village.  I  think  it  likely  that  the  next  thirty 
years  will  reveal  the  recuperative  power  of  American  institu 
tions.  One  of  you  young  men  might  easily  become  a  reform 
President,  and  be  carried  into  office  and  held  in  office  by  the 
force  of  that  private  opinion  which  is  now  being  sown  broadcast 
throughout  the  country  by  just  such  men  as  yourselves.  You 
will  concede  the  utility  of  such  a  President.  Yet  it  would  not  be 
the  man  but  the  masses  behind  him  that  did  his  work. 

Democracy  thus  lets  character  loose  upon  society  and  shows 
us  that  in  the  realm  of  natural  law  there  is  nothing  either  small 
or  great:  and  this  is  the  chief  value  of  democracy.  In  America 
the  young  man  meets  the  struggle  between  good  and  evil  in  the 
easiest  form  in  which  it  was  ever  laid  before  men.  The  cruel 
ties  of  interest  and  of  custom  have  with  us  no  artificial  assist 
ance  from  caste,  creed  or  race-prejudice.  Our  frame  of  govern 
ment  is  drawn  in  close  accordance  with  the  laws  of  nature.  By 
our  documents  we  are  dedicated  to  mankind;  and  hence  it  is 
that  we  can  so  easily  feel  the  pulse  of  the  world  and  lay  our  hand 
on  the  living  organism  of  humanity. 


THE   AMATEUR  SPIRIT 

BY   BLISS   PERRY 

Delivered  before  the  Delta  of  New  York,  at  Columbia  University,  and  before 
the  Delta  of  Massachusetts,  at  Tufts  College,  in  1901.  Reprinted  by  permission 
from  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  August,  1901. 

ONE  interesting  result  of  the  British  struggle  in  South  Africa 
has  been  a  revival  among  Englishmen  of  the  spirit  of  self-exami 
nation.  The  unexpected  duration  and  the  staggering  cost  of  the 
war  have  brought  sharply  home  to  them  a  realization  of  na 
tional  shortcomings.  When  every  allowance  has  been  made  for 
the  natural  difficulties  against  which  the  British  troops  have 
so  gallantly  contended,  there  remains  a  good  deal  of  incontro 
vertible  and  unwelcome  evidence  of  defective  preparation,  of 
inadequate  training.  The  War  Office  maps  were  incomplete; 
the  Boer  positions  were  ill  reconnoitred;  British  officers  of  long 
experience  were  again  and  again  outgeneraled  by  farmers.  Of 
the  many  frank  and  manly  endeavors  to  analyze  the  causes  of 
such  a  surprising  weakness,  one  of  the  most  suggestive  has  been 
made  by  the  Hon.  George  C.  Brodrick,  Warden  of  Merton  Col 
lege.  In  an  article  published  not  long  ago,  he  inquires  whether 
his  countrymen  may  well  be  called,  not,  as  formerly,  "a  nation 
of  shopkeepers,"  but,  with  more  justice,  a  nation  of  amateurs. 
"Conspicuous  as  are  the  virtues  of  British  soldiers  and  British 
officers,"  he  remarks,  "these  virtues  are  essentially  the  virtues 
of  the  amateur,  and  not  of  the  professional,  arising  from  the 
native  vigor  of  our  national  temperament,  and  not  from  intelli 
gent  education  or  training."  1 

The  distinction  here  made  between  the  amateur  and  the  pro 
fessional  is  one  that,  for  ordinary  purposes,  is  obvious  enough. 
The  amateur,  we  are  accustomed  to  say,  works  for  love,  and  not 
for  money.  He  cultivates  an  art  or  a  sport,  a  study  or  an  em 
ployment,  because  of  his  taste  for  it;  he  is  attached  to  it,  not 
because  it  gives  him  a  living,  but  because  it  ministers  to  his  life. 
1  The  Nineteenth  Century,  October,  1900. 


264  BLISS   PERRY 

Mr.  Joseph  Jefferson,  for  instance,  is  classed  as  a  professional 
actor  and  an  amateur  painter.  Charles  Dickens  was  an  amateur 
actor  and  a  professional  novelist.  Your  intermittent  political 
reformer  is  an  amateur.  His  opponent,  the  "ward  man,"  is  a 
professional;  politics  being  both  his  life  and  his  living,  his  art 
and  his  constant  industry. 

In  any  particular  art  or  sport,  it  is  often  difficult  to  draw  a 
hard-and-fast  line  between  amateur  and  professional  activity. 
The  amateur  athlete  may  be  so  wholly  in  earnest  as  to  take  risks 
and  to  endure  hardships  which  no  amount  of  money  would  tempt 
him  to  undergo.  Amateur  philanthropy  is  of  great  and  increas 
ing  service  in  the  social  organism  of  the  modern  community. 
Many  an  American  carries  into  his  amusement,  his  avocation,  — 
such  as  yachting,  fancy  farming,  tarpon  fishing,  —  the  same 
thoroughness,  energy,  and  practical  skill  that  win  him  success 
in  his  vocation. 

And  yet,  as  a  general  rule,  the  amateur  betrays  amateurish 
qualities.  He  is  unskilful  because  untrained;  desultory  because 
incessant  devotion  to  his  hobby  is  both  unnecessary  and  weari 
some;  ineffective  because,  after  all,  it  is  not  a  vital  matter  whether 
he  succeed  or  fail.  The  amateur  actor  is  usually  interesting,  at 
times  delightful,  and  even,  as  in  the  case  of  Dickens,  powerful; 
his  performance  gives  pleasure  to  his  friends;  but,  nevertheless, 
the  professional,  who  must  act  well  or  starve,  acts  very  much 
better.  In  a  country  where  there  is  a  great  leisure  class,  as  the 
Warden  of  Merton  points  out,  amateurism  is  sure  to  flourish. 
"The  young  Englishman  of  this  great  leisure  class,"  he  says, 
"is  no  dandy  and  no  coward,  but  he  is  an  amateur  born  and  bred, 
with  an  amateur's  lack  of  training,  an  amateur's  contempt  of 
method,  and  an  amateur's  ideal  of  life."  The  English  boy  at 
tends  school,  he  adds,  with  other  boys  who  are  amateurs  in  their 
studies,  and  almost  professionals  in  their  games;  he  passes  through 
the  university  with  the  minimum  of  industry;  he  finds  profes 
sional  and  public  life  in  Great  Britain  crippled  by  the  amateur 
spirit;  in  the  army,  the  bar,  the  church,  in  agriculture,  manu 
facturing,  and  commerce,  there  is  a  contempt  for  knowledge, 
an  inveterate  faith  in  the  superiority  of  the  rule  of  thumb,  a 
tendency  to  hold  one's  self  a  little  above  one's  work. 

Similar  testimony  has  recently  been  given  by  Dr.  Mandell 


THE  AMATEUR  SPIRIT  265 

Creighton,  the  late  Bishop  of  London,  in  a  posthumously  pub 
lished  address  entitled  A  Plea  for  Knowledge.  "The  great  defect 
of  England  at  present,"  confesses  the  bishop,  "is  an  inadequate 
conception  of  the  value  of  knowledge  in  itself,  and  of  its  impor 
tance  for  the  national  life.  We  have  a  tendency  to  repose  on  our 
laurels;  to  adopt  the  attitude  that  we  are  no  longer  professionals, 
but  high-minded  and  eclectic  amateurs.  .  .  .  We  do  not  care  to 
sacrifice  our  dignity  by  taking  undue  care  about  trifles."  * 

With  the  validity  of  such  indictments  against  a  whole  nation 
we  have  no  direct  concern.  But  they  suggest  the  importance 
of  the  distinction  between  the  amateur  and  the  professional 
spirit;  they  show  that  a  realization  of  this  distinction  may  affect 
many  phases  of  activity,  personal  and  national,  and  how  far- 
reaching  may  be  its  significance  for  us  as  we  face  those  new  con 
ditions  under  which  the  problems  of  both  personal  and  national 
life  must  be  worked  out. 

Amateurs,  then,  to  borrow  Mr.  Brodrick's  definition,  "are 
men  who  are  not  braced  up  to  a  high  standard  of  effort  and 
proficiency  by  a  knowledge  that  failure  may  involve  ruin,  who 
seldom  fully  realize  the  difficulties  of  success  against  trained 
competitors,  and  who  therefore  rebel  against  the  drudgery  of 
professional  drill  and  methodical  instruction."  One  may  accept 
this  definition,  in  all  its  implications,  without  ceasing  to  be 
aware  of  the  charm  of  the  amateur.  For  the  amateur  surely  has 
his  charm,  and  he  has  his  virtues,  —  virtues  that  have  nowhere 
wrought  more  happily  for  him  than  here  upon  American  soil. 
Versatility,  enthusiasm,  freshness  of  spirit,  initiative,  a  fine 
recklessness  of  tradition  and  precedent,  a  faculty  for  cutting 
across  lots,  —  these  are  the  qualities  of  the  American  pioneer. 
Not  in  the  Italians  of  the  Renaissance  nor  in  the  Elizabethan 
Englishmen  will  one  find  more  plasticity  of  mind  and  hand  than 
among  the  plain  New  Englanders  of  1840.  Take  those  men  of 
the  Transcendentalist  epoch,  whose  individuality  has  been  for 
tunately  transmitted  to  us  through  our  literature.  They  were 
in  love  with  life,  enraptured  of  its  opportunities  and  possibilities. 
No  matter  to  what  task  a  man  set  his  hand,  he  could  gain  a  liveli 
hood  without  loss  of  self-respect  or  the  respect  of  the  community. 
Let  him  try  teaching  school,  Emerson  would  advise;  let  him 
1  Contemporary  Review,  April,  1901. 


266  BLISS  PERRY 

farm  it  awhile,  drive  a  tin  peddler's  cart  for  a  season  or  two, 
keep  store,  go  to  Congress,  live  "the  experimental  life."  Emer 
son  himself  could  muse  upon  the  oversoul,  but  he  also  raised 
the  best  Baldwin  apples  and  Bartlett  pears  in  Concord,  and 
got  the  highest  current  prices  for  them  in  the  Boston  market. 
His  friend  Thoreau  supported  himself  by  making  sandpaper  OF 
lead  pencils,  by  surveying  farms,  or  by  hoeing  that  immortal 
patch  of  beans ;  his  true  vocation  being  steadily  that  of  the 
philosopher,  the  seeker.  The  type  has  been  preserved,  by  the 
translucent  art  of  Hawthorne,  in  the  person  of  Holgrave,  the 
daguerreotypist  of  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables.  Holgrave  was 
twenty-two,  but  he  had  already  been  a  schoolmaster,  store 
keeper,  editor,  peddler,  dentist.  He  had  travelled  in  Europe, 
joined  a  company  of  Fourierists,  and  lectured  on  mesmerism. 
Yet  "amid  all  these  personal  vicissitudes,"  Hawthorne  tells  us, 
"he  had  never  lost  his  identity.  He  had  never  violated  the  inner 
most  man,  but  had  carried  his  conscience  along  with  him." 

No  doubt  there  is  something  humorous,  to  our  generation, 
in  this  glorification  of  the  Yankee  tin  peddler.  Yet  how  much 
there  is  to  admire  in  the  vivacity,  the  resourcefulness,  the  very 
mobility,  of  that  type  of  man,  who  was  always  in  light  march 
ing  order,  and  who,  by  flank  attack  and  feigned  retreat  and  in 
every  disguise  of  uniform,  stormed  his  way  to  some  sort  of  moral 
victory  at  last!  And  the  moral  victory  was  often  accompanied 
by  material  victory  as  well.  These  men  got  on,  by  hook  or  by 
crook;  they  asked  no  favors;  they  paid  off  their  mortgages,  and 
invented  machines,  and  wrote  books,  and  founded  new  com 
monwealths.  In  war  and  peace  they  had  a  knack  for  getting 
things  done,  and  learning  the  rules  afterward. 

Nor  has  this  restless,  inventive,  querying,  accomplishing  type 
of  American  manhood  lost  its  prominence  in  our  political  and 
social  structure.  The  self-made  man  is  still,  perhaps,  our  most 
representative  man.  Native  shrewdness  and  energy  and  practical 
capacity  —  qualities  such  as  the  amateur  may  possess  in  a  high 
degree  —  continue  to  carry  a  man  very  far.  They  have  fre 
quently  been  attended  by  such  good  fortune  as  to  make  it  easy 
for  us  to  think  that  they  are  the  only  qualities  needed  for  suc 
cess.  Some  of  the  most  substantial  gains  of  American  diplomacy, 
for  instance,  have  been  made  by  men  without  diplomatic  train- 


THE  AMATEUR  SPIRIT  267 

ing.  We  have  seen  within  a  very  few  years  an  almost  unknown 
lawyer,  from  an  insignificant  city,  called  to  be  the  head  of  the 
Department  of  State,  where  his  achievements,  indeed,  promptly 
justified  his  appointment.  The  conduct  of  the  War  Department 
and  the  Navy  has  frequently  been  entrusted  to  civilians  whose 
frank  ignorance  of  their  new  duties  has  been  equalled  only  by 
their  skill  in  performing  them.  The  history  of  American  cabi 
nets  is,  in  spite  of  many  exceptions,  on  the  whole,  an  apotheosis 
of  the  amateur.  It  is  the  readiest  justification  of  the  tin  peddler 
theory,  —  the  theory,  namely,  that  you  should  first  get  your 
man,  and  then  let  him  learn  his  new  trade  by  practising  it.  "By 
dint  of  hammering  one  gets  to  be  a  blacksmith,"  say  the  French; 
and  if  a  blacksmith,  why  not  a  postmaster,  or  a  postmaster  gen 
eral,  or  an  ambassador? 

The  difficulty  with  this  theory  lies  in  the  temptation  to  exag 
gerate  it.  Because  we  have  been  lucky  thus  far,  we  are  tempted 
to  proceed  upon  the  comfortable  conviction  that  if  we  once  find 
our  man,  the  question  of  his  previous  apprenticeship  to  his  call 
ing,  or  even  that  of  his  training  in  some  related  field  of  activity, 
may  safely  be  ignored.  The  gambler  is  in  our  blood.  We  like 
to  watch  the  performance  of  an  untried  man  in  a  responsible 
position,  much  as  we  do  the  trotting  of  a  green  horse.  The  ad 
mitted  uncertainty  of  the  result  enhances  our  pleasure  in  the 
experiment.  In  literature,  just  now,  we  are  witnessing  the  ex 
ploitation  of  the  "young  writer."  Lack  of  experience,  of  crafts 
manship,  is  actually  counted  among  a  fledgeling  author's  assets. 
The  curiosity  of  the  public  regarding  this  new,  unknown  power 
is  counted  upon  to  offset,  and  more,  the  recognition  of  the  known 
power  of  the  veteran  writer.  Power  is  indeed  recognized  as  the 
ultimate  test  of  merit;  but  there  is  a  widespread  tendency  to 
overlook  the  fact  that  power  is  largely  conditioned  upon  skill, 
and  that  skill  depends  not  merely  upon  natural  faculty,  but 
upon  knowledge  and  discipline.  The  popularity  of  the  "young 
writer"  is,  in  short,  an  illustration  of  the  easy  glorification  of 
amateur  qualities  to  the  neglect  of  professional  qualities. 

This  tendency  is  the  more  curious  because  of  our  pronounced 
national  distaste  for  ineffectiveness.  The  undisguisedly  amateur 
ish  traits  of  unskilfulness  and  desultoriness  have  not  been  popu- 


268  BLISS  PERRY 

lar  here.  If  we  have  been  rather  complaisant  toward  the  jack- 
of -all-trades,  we  have  never  wholly  forgotten  that  he  is  "master 
of  none."  In  the  older  New  England  vernacular,  the  village 
ne'er-do-well  was  commonly  spoken  of  as  a  "clever"  fellow;  the 
adjective  was  distinctly  opprobrious.  And,  indeed,  if  the  connois 
seur  is  the  one  who  knows,  and  the  dilettante  the  one  who  only 
thinks  he  knows,  the  amateur  is  often  the  one  who  would  like  to 
know,  but  is  too  lazy  to  learn.  Accordingly,  he  keeps  guessing, 
in  an  easy,  careless,  "clever"  fashion,  which  is  agreeable  enough 
when  no  serious  interests  are  at  stake.  He  has  transient  affec 
tions  for  this  and  that  department  of  thought  or  activity;  like 
Mr.  Brooke  in  Middlemarch,  he  has  "gone  into  that  a  good  deal 
at  one  time."  Mr.  Brooke  is  a  delightful  person  in  fiction,  but 
in  actual  life  a  great  many  Mr.  Brookes  end  their  career  at 
the  town  farm.  Even  this  would  not  in  itself  be  so  lamentable 
a  matter,  if  it  were  not  in  the  power  of  a  community  of  Mr. 
Brookes  to  create  conditions  capable  of  driving  the  rest  of  us  to 
the  town  farm.  "  Dilettanteism,  hypothesis,  speculation,  a  kind 
of  amateur  search  for  truth,  —  this,"  says  Carlyle,  "is  the  sorest 
sin." 

The  amateur  search  for  truth  has  always  flourished,  and  is 
likely  to  flourish  always,  in  the  United  States.  That  the  quest 
is  inspiriting,  amusing,  sometimes  highly  rewarded,  one  may 
readily  admit.  But  if  it  promotes  individualism,  it  also  produces 
the  crank.  If  it  brevets  us  all  as  philosophers,  it  likewise  brands 
many  of  us  as  fools.  Who  does  not  know  the  amateur  economist, 
with  his  "sacred  ratios,"  or  his  amiable  willingness  to  "do  some 
thing  for  silver"?  The  amateur  sociologist,  who  grows  strangely 
confused  if  you  ask  him  to  define  sociology?  Popular  preachers, 
who  can  refute  Darwin  and  elucidate  Jefferson  "while  you  wait," 
—  if  you  do  wait?  Amateur  critics  of  art  and  literature,  who 
have  plenty  of  zeal,  but  no  knowledge  of  standards,  no  anchor 
age  in  principles?  The  lady  amateur,  who  writes  verses  without 
knowing  prosody,  and  paints  pictures  without  learning  to  draw, 
and  performs  what  she  calls  "social  service"  without  training 
her  own  children  either  in  manners  or  religion?  Nay,  are  there 
not  amateur  college  professors,  who  walk  gracefully  through  the 
part,  but  add  neither  to  the  domain  of  human  knowledge  nor 
to  the  practical  efficiency  of  any  pupil? 


THE  AMATEUR  SPIRIT  269 

But  the  roll-call  of  these  dependents  and  defectives  is  long 
enough.  The  failures  of  the  amateur  search  for  truth  are  often 
brilliant  failures.  Its  occasional  successes  have  often  been  bril 
liant,  too.  Yet  the  real  workaday  progress,  the  solid  irretrace 
able  advance  in  any  art  or  profession,  has  commonly  been  made 
by  the  professional.  He  sums  up  in  himself  both  connoisseur- 
ship  and  craftsmanship.  He  not  only  knows,  but  does.  Pasteur 
was  a  professional,  and  Helmholtz,  and  Huxley.  John  Marshall 
was  a  professional.  Mr.  John  Sargent  is  a  professional,  and  so 
is  Mr.  Secretary  Hay. 

If  the  gifted  amateur  desires  to  learn  his  relative  rank  when 
compared  with  a  professional,  the  way  is  easy.  Let  him  chal 
lenge  the  professional!  Play  a  match  at  golf  against  the  dour 
Scotchman  who  gives  lessons  for  his  daily  bread.  He  will  beat 
you,  because  he  cannot  afford  not  to  beat  you.  Shoot  against 
your  guide  in  the  North  Woods.  You  will  possibly  beat  him  at 
a  target,  but  he  will  hit  the  deer  that  you  have  just  missed;  you 
can  cast  a  fly  on  the  lawn  much  farther  than  he,  but  he  will  take 
more  fish  out  of  the  pool.  It  is  his  business,  your  recreation. 
Some  one  dear  to  you  is  critically  ill.  It  seems  cruel  to  surrender 
the  care  of  the  sick  person  to  a  hireling,  when  you  are  conscious 
of  boundless  love  and  devotion.  But  your  physician  will  prefer 
the  trained  nurse,  because  the  trained  nurse  will  do  what  she  is 
told,  will  keep  cool,  keep  quiet,  count  the  drops  accurately,  read 
the  thermometer  right;  because,  in  short,  he  can  depend  upon  a 
professional,  and  cannot  depend  upon  an  amateur. 

What  is  true  of  the  sport,  of  the  art,  is  even  more  invariably 
true  in  the  field  of  scientific  effort.  How  secure  is  the  course  of 
the  Fachmann,  who  by  limiting  his  territory  has  become  lord  of 
it,  who  has  a  fund  of  positive  knowledge  upon  all  the  knowable 
portions  of  it,  and  has  charted,  at  least,  the  deepening  water 
where  knowledge  sheers  off  into  ignorance !  It  is  late  in  the  day 
to  confess  the  indebtedness  of  our  generation  to  the  scientific 
method.  How  tonic  and  heartening,  in  days  of  dull  routine,  has 
been  the  example  of  those  brave  German  masters  to  whom  our 
American  scholarship  owes  so  much!  What  industry  has  been 
theirs,  what  confidence  in  method,  what  serene  indifference  to 
the  rivalry  of  the  gifted  amateur !  I  recall  the  fine  scorn  with 
which  Bernhard  ten  Brink,  at  Strassburg,  used  to  waive  aside  the 


270  BLISS  PERRY 

suggestions  of  his  pupils  that  this  or  that  new  and  widely  ad 
vertised  book  might  contain  some  valuable  contribution  to  his 
department.  "Nay,"  he  would  retort,  " ' wissenschaftliche  Bedeu- 
tung  hat's  dock  nicht."  Many  a  pretentious  book,  a  popular  book, 
even  a  very  useful  book,  was  pilloried  by  that  quiet  sentence, 
"/£  has  no  scientific  significance."  To  get  the  import  of  that  sen 
tence  thoroughly  into  one's  head  is  worth  all  it  costs  to  sit  at 
the  feet  of  German  scholars.  There  speaks  the  true,  patient, 
scientific  spirit,  whose  service  to  the  modern  man  was  perhaps 
the  most  highly  appraised  factor  when  we  of  the  Western  world 
tried  to  take  an  inventory  of  ourselves  and  our  indebtedness,  at 
the  dawn  of  the  new  century. 

For  to  be  able  to  assess  the  scientific  bearing  of  the  new  book, 
the  new  fact,  upon  your  own  profession  proves  you  a  master 
of  your  profession.  Modern  competitive  conditions  are  making 
this  kind  of  expert  knowledge  more  and  more  essential.  The 
success  of  German  manufacturing  chemists,  for  example,  is  uni 
versally  acknowledged  to  be  due  to  the  scientific  attainments  of 
the  thousands  of  young  men  who  enter  the  manufactories  from 
the  great  technical  schools.  The  alarm  of  Englishmen  over  the 
recent  strides  of  Germany  in  commercial  rivalry  is  due  to  a  dawn 
ing  recognition  of  the  efficacy  of  knowledge,  and  of  the  training 
which  knowledge  recommends.  It  is  the  well-grounded  alarm 
of  the  gifted  amateur  when  compelled  to  compete  with  the  pro 
fessional.  The  professional  may  not  be  a  wholly  agreeable  an 
tagonist;  he  may  not  happen  to  be  a  "clubable"  person;  but 
that  fact  does  not  vitiate  his  record.  His  record  stands. 

Is  it  possible  to  explain  this  patent  or  latent  antagonism  of 
the  amateur  toward  the  professional?  It  is  explicable,  in  part 
at  least,  through  a  comparison  not  so  much  of  their  methods  of 
work  —  where  the  praise  must  be  awarded  to  the  professional  — 
as  of  their  characteristic  spirit.  And  here  there  is  much  more  to 
be  said  for  the  amateur.  The  difference  will  naturally  be  more 
striking  if  we  compare  the  most  admirable  trait  of  the  amateur 
spirit  with  the  least  admirable  trait  of  the  professional  spirit. 

The  cultivated  amateur,  who  touches  life  on  many  sides,  per 
ceives  that  the  professional  is  apt  to  approach  life  from  one  side 
only.  It  is  a  commonplace  to  say  that  without  specialized  train- 


THE  AMATEUR  SPIRIT  271 

ing  and  accomplishment  the  road  to  most  kinds  of  professional 
success  is  closed.  Yet,  through  bending  one's  energies  unremit 
tingly  upon  a  particular  task,  it  often  happens  that  creation  nar 
rows  "in  man's  view,"  instead  of  widening.  Your  famous  expert, 
as  you  suddenly  discover,  is  but  a  segment  of  a  man,  —  over 
developed  in  one  direction,  atrophied  in  all  others.  His  expert- 
ness,  his  professional  functioning,  so  to  speak,  is  of  indisputable 
value  to  society,  but  he  himself  remains  an  unsocial  member  of 
the  body  politic.  He  has  become  a  machine,  —  as  Emerson 
declared  so  long  ago,  "a  thinker,  not  a  man  thinking."  He  is 
uninterested,  and  consequently  uninteresting.  Very  possibly 
it  may  not  be  the  chief  end  of  man  to  afford  an  interesting  spec 
tacle  to  the  observer.  And  yet  so  closely  are  we  bound  together 
that  a  loss  of  sympathy,  of  imagination,  of  free  and  varied  activ 
ity,  soon  insulates  the  individual,  and  lessens  his  usefulness  as 
a  member  of  society.  Surely  we  are  playing  an  interesting  com 
edy,  here  between  heaven  and  the  mire,  and  we  ought  to  play 
it  in  an  interested  way.  We  can  afford  to  be  human.  Scientific 
Method  is  a  handmaiden  whose  services  have  proved  indispen 
sable.  No  one  can  fill  her  place.  We  should  raise  her  wages.  But, 
after  all,  Personality  is  the  mistress  of  the  house.  Method  must 
be  taught  to  know  her  station,  and 

"She  is  the  second,  not  the  first." 

No  doubt  there  is  a  temptation,  in  such  a  comparison  of  qual 
ities  and  gifts,  to  dally  with  mere  abstractions.  None  of  us  have 
known  a  wholly  methodized,  mechanicalized  man.  But  none 
the  less  we  may  properly  endeavor  to  measure  a  tendency,  and 
to  guard  against  its  excess.  There  are  few  observers  of  American 
life  who  believe  that  specialization  has  as  yet  been  carried  too 
far.  Yet  one  may  insist  that  the  theory  of  specialized  functions, 
necessitated  as  it  is  by  modern  conditions,  and  increasingly 
demanded  as  it  must  be  as  our  civilization  grows  in  complexity, 
needs  examination  and  correction  in  the  interests  of  true  human 
progress.  It  is  not  that  we  actually  meet  on  the  sidewalk  some 
scientific  Frankenstein,  some  marvellously  developed  special 
faculty  for  research  or  invention  or  money-making,  which  domi 
nates  and  dwarfs  all  other  faculties,  —  though  we  often  see 
something  that  looks  very  much  like  it.  It  is  rather  that  thought- 


272  BLISS  PERRY 

ful  people  are  compelled  to  ask  themselves,  How  far  can  this 
special  development  —  this  purely  professional  habit  of  mind  — 
proceed  without  injury  to  the  symmetry  of  character,  without 
impairing  the  varied  and  spontaneous  and  abundant  play  of 
human  powers  which  gives  joy  to  life?  And  the  prejudice  which 
the  amateur  feels  toward  the  professional,  the  more  or  less  veiled 
hostility  between  the  man  who  does  something  for  love  which 
another  man  does  for  money,  is  one  of  those  instinctive  reac 
tions  —  like  the  vague  alarm  of  some  wild  creature  in  the 
woods  —  which  give  a  hint  of  danger. 

Let  us  make  the  very  fullest  acknowledgment  of  our  debt  to 
the  professional  spirit.  Many  of  our  best  inheritances,  such 
as  our  body  of  law,  represent  the  steady  achievements  of  pro 
fessional  skill,  professional  self-sacrifice.  The  mechanical  con 
veniences  and  equipments  in  which  the  age  abounds,  all  this 
apparatus  for  communication  and  transportation,  have  been 
wrought  out  for  us  by  the  most  patient,  the  most  concentrated 
activity  of  professionals.  The  young  man  who  is  entering  medi 
cine,  the  law,  business,  the  army,  the  church,  finds  himself 
ranked  at  once  by  his  power  to  assimilate  the  professional  experi 
ence  of  older  men.  Some  day,  let  us  trust,  the  young  man  who 
desires  to  serve  his  country  in  her  civil  service,  her  consular  and 
diplomatic  service,  will  find  himself,  not,  as  now,  blocked  by  an 
amateurish  system  of  rewards  for  partisan  fealty,  but  upon  the 
road  to  a  genuine  professional  career.  The  hope  of  society,  no 
doubt,  depends  largely  upon  those  men  who  are  seriously  devot 
ing  their  energies  to  some  form  of  expert  activity.  They  are  the 
torch-bearers,  the  trained  runners  who  bear  the  light  from  stage 
to  stage  of  the  heaven-beholden  course.  And  at  least  in  the 
immediate  future  the  necessity  for  unwearying  professional 
endeavor  will  be  more  pressing  than  ever  before  in  the  history 
of  the  world. 

"  Cities  will  crowd  to  its  edge 
In  a  blacker,  incessanter  line; 
.  .  .  The  din  will  be  more  on  its  banks, 
Denser  the  trade  on  its  stream." 

Ours  must  be,  not  "a  nation  of  amateurs,"  but  a  nation  of 
professionals,  if  it  is  to  hold  its  own  in  the  coming  struggles,  — 
struggles  not  merely  for  commercial  dominance,  but  for  the 


THE  AMATEUR   SPIRIT  273 

supremacy  of  political  and  moral  ideals.  Our  period  of  national 
isolation,  with  all  it  brought  of  good  or  evil,  has  been  outlived. 
The  new  epoch  will  place  a  heavy  handicap  upon  ignorance  of  the 
actual  world,  upon  indifference  to  international  usages  and 
undertakings,  upon  contempt  for  the  foreigner.  What  is  needed 
is,  indeed,  knowledge,  and  the  skill  that  knowledge  makes  pos 
sible.  The  spirit  with  which  we  confront  the  national  tasks  of 
the  future  should  have  the  sobriety,  the  firmness,  the  steady 
effectiveness,  which  we  associate  with  the  professional. 

Yet  is  it  not  possible,  while  thus  acknowledging  and  cultivat 
ing  the  professional  virtues,  to  free  ourselves  from  some  of  the 
grosser  faults  of  the  mere  professional?  The  mere  professional's 
cupidity,  for  instance,  his  low  aim,  his  time-serving,  his  narrow 
ness,  his  clannish  loyalty,  to  his  own  department  only,  his  lack 
of  imagination,  his  indifference  to  the  religious  and  moral  pas 
sions,  to  the  dreams,  hopes,  futilities,  regrets,  of  the  breathing, 
bleeding,  struggling  men  and  women  by  his  side?  It  is  not  the 
prize-fighter  only  who  brings  professionalism  into  disrepute, 
nor  the  jockey  that  "pulls"  a  horse,  the  oarsman  that  "sells" 
a  race,  the  bicyclist  that  fouls  a  rival.  The  taint  of  profession 
alism  clings  to  the  business  man  that  can  think  only  of  his  shop, 
the  scholar  that  talks  merely  of  letters,  the  politician  that  asks 
of  the  proposed  measure,  "What  is  there  in  this  for  me?"  To 
counteract  all  such  provinciality  and  selfishness,  such  loss  of 
the  love  of  honor  in  the  love  of  gain,  one  may  rightly  plead  for 
some  breath  of  the  spirit  of  the  amateur,  the  amator,  the  "man 
who  loves";  the  man  who  works  for  the  sheer  love  of  working, 
plays  the  great  complicated  absorbing  game  of  life  for  the  sake 
of  the  game,  and  not  for  his  share  of  the  gate  money;  the  man 
who  is  ashamed  to  win  if  he  cannot  win  fairly,  —  nay,  who  is 
chivalric  enough  to  grant  breathing  space  to  a  rival,  whether  he 
win  or  lose! 

Is  it  an  impossible  ideal,  this  combination  of  qualities,  this 
union  of  the  generous  spirit  of  the  amateur  with  the  method  of 
the  professional?  In  the  new  world  of  disciplined  national  en 
deavor  upon  which  we  are  entering,  why  may  not  the  old  Ameri* 
can  characteristics  of  versatility,  spontaneity,  adventurousness, 
still  persist?  These  are  the  traits  that  fit  one  to  adjust  himself 
readily  to  unforeseen  conditions,  to  meet  new  emergencies. 


274  BLISS  PERRY 

They  will  be  even  more  valuable  in  the  future  than  in  the  past, 
if  they  are  employed  to  supplement,  rather  than  to  be  substi 
tuted  for,  the  solid  achievements  of  professional  industry.  If  we 
are  really  to  lead  the  world's  commerce,  —  though  that  is  far 
from  being  the  only  kind  of  leadership  to  which  American  his 
tory  should  teach  us  to  aspire,  —  it  will  be  the  Yankee  charac 
teristics,  plus  the  scientific  training  of  the  modern  man,  that 
will  enable  us  to  do  it.  The  personal  enthusiasm,  the  individual 
initiative,  the  boundless  zest,  of  the  American  amateur  must 
penetrate,  illuminate,  idealize,  the  brute  force,  the  irresistibly 
on-sweeping  mass,  of  our  vast  industrial  democracy. 

The  best  evidence  that  this  will  happen  is  the  fact  that  it  is 
already  happening.  There  are  amateurs  without  amateurish 
ness,  professionals  untainted  by  professionalism.  Many  of  us 
are  fortunate  enough  to  recognize  in  some  friend  this  combina 
tion  of  qualities,  this  union  of  strict  professional  training  with 
that  free  outlook  upon  life,  that  human  curiosity  and  eagerness, 
which  are  the  best  endowment  of  the  amateur.  Such  men  are 
indeed  rare,  but  they  are  prized  accordingly.  And  one  need 
hardly  say  where  they  are  most  likely  to  be  found.  It  is  among 
the  ranks  of  those  who  have  received  a  liberal  education.  Every 
higher  institution  of  learning  in  this  country  now  offers  some 
sort  of  specialized  training.  To  win  distinction  in  academic  work 
is  to  come  under  the  dominion  of  exact  knowledge,  of  approved 
methods.  It  means  that  one  is  disciplined  in  the  mechanical 
processes  and  guided  by  the  spirit  of  modern  science,  no  matter 
what  his  particular  studies  may  have  been.  The  graduates  whose 
acquisitions  can  most  readily  be  assessed  are  probably  the  ones 
who  have  specialized  most  closely,  who  have  already  as  under 
graduates  begun  to  fit  themselves  for  some  form  of  professional 
career.  They  have  already  gained  something  of  the  expert's 
solid  basis  of  accurate  information,  the  expert's  sureriess  of  hand 
and  eye,  the  expert's  instinct  for  the  right  method. 

But  this  professional  discipline  needs  tempering  by  another 
spirit.  The  highest  service  of  the  educated  man  to  our  demo 
cratic  society  demands  of  him  breadth  of  interest  as  well  as 
depth  of  technical  research.  It  requires  unquenched  ardor  for 
the  best  things,  spontaneous  delight  in  the  play  of  mind  and  char 
acter,  a  many-sided  responsiveness  that  shall  keep  a  man  from 


THE  AMATEUR  SPIRIT  275 

hardening  into  a  mere  high-geared  machine.  It  is  these  qualities 
that  perfect  a  liberal  education  and  complete  a  man's  usefulness 
to  his  generation.  Taken  by  themselves,  they  fit  him  primarily 
for  living,  rather  than  for  getting  a  living.  But  they  are  not  to 
be  divorced  from  other  qualities;  and  even  if  they  were,  the 
educated  American  can  get  a  living  more  easily  than  he  can 
learn  how  to  live.  The  moral  lessons  are  harder  than  the  intel 
lectual,  and  faith  and  enthusiasm,  sympathy  and  imagination, 
are  moral  qualities. 

Here  is  some  young  scholar  who  has  been  taught  the  facts  of 
history,  trained  to  sift  historical  evidence,  to  compare  historical 
periods,  to  trace  historical  causes;  but  has  he  imagination  enough 
to  see  into  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  historical  man?  He  has 
been  taught  to  analyze  the  various  theories  of  society  and  govern 
ment;  he  has  learned  to  sneer  at  what  he  calls  "glittering  gen 
eralities";  yet  has  he  sympathy  enough,  moral  passion  enough, 
to  understand  what  those  glittering  generalities  have  done  for 
the  men  and  the  generations  that  have  been  willing  to  die  for 
them?  Such  secrets  forever  elude  the  cold  heart  and  the  calcu 
lating  brain.  But  they  are  understood  by  the  generous  youth, 
by  the  man  who  is  brave  enough  to  take  chances,  to  risk  all  for 
the  sake  of  gaining  all.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  amateur 
football  game,  for  all  its  brutalities,  has  taught  many  a  young 
scholar  a  finer  lesson  than  the  classroom  has  taught  him,  namely, 
to  risk  his  neck  for  his  college;  yet  no  finer  one  than  the  class 
room  might  afford  him  if  his  teacher  were  always  an  amator,  — 
a  lover  of  virility  as  well  as  of  accuracy;  a  follower  not  of  the 
letter  only,  but  of  the  spirit  which  makes  alive.  "Our  business 
in  this  world,"  said  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  —  a  craftsman 
who  through  all  his  heart-breaking  professional  toil  preserved 
the  invincible  gayety  of  the  lover,  —  "is  not  to  succeed,  but  to 
continue  to  fail  in  good  spirits."  In  this  characteristically  Ste- 
vensonian  paradox  there  is  a  perfect  and  a  very  noble  expression 
of  the  amateur  spirit.  He  does  not  mean,  we  may  be  sure,  that 
failure  is  preferable  to  success,  but  that  more  significant  than 
either  success  or  failure  is  the  courage  with  which  one  rides  into 
the  lists.  It  is  his  moral  attitude  toward  his  work  which  lifts 
the  workman  above  the  fatalities  of  time  and  chance,  so  that, 
whatever  fortune  befall  the  labor  of  his  hands,  the  travail  of 
his  soul  remains  undefeated  and  secure. 


THINGS  HUMAN 

BY   BENJAMIN   IDE   WHEELER 

Delivered  before  the  Beta  of  Illinois,  at  the  University  of  Chicago,  June  17, 
1901.  Reprinted  by  permission  from  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  November,  1902. 

MAN  is  unquestionably  a  highly  rational  being.  Still,  if  you 
travel  and  observe,  from  the  mouth  of  the  Danube  to  the 
Golden  Gate,  you  will  find  most  men  wearing  a  coat  with  a  use 
less  collar  marked  with  a  useless  "  V  "-shaped  slash,  and  decorated 
with  two  useless  buttons  at  the  small  of  the  back,  and  one  or 
more  useless  buttons  at  the  cuffs.  The  collar,  the  slash,  and 
the  buttons  are  there  in  answer  to  no  rational  need;  it  is  not  a 
common  climate  nor  a  common  racial  need  of  protection  against 
climate  that  they  represent,  but  a  common  civilization  whose 
form  and  ritual  they  mutely  confess.  Over  this  entire  area 
those  who  aspire  to  be  of  the  Brahmin  caste  deck  their  heads 
for  wedding,  funeral,  and  feast  with  a  black  cylindrical  covering, 
suited,  so  far  as  we  can  discern,  neither  to  avert  the  weapon 
of  the  adversary  or  the  dart  of  the  rain,  nor  to  provide  a  seat 
whereon  man  may  sit  and  rest  himself.  And  as  for  the  women 
contained  within  this  same  area  we  behold  that  the  amplitude 
of  the  sleeve,  the  disposition  of  the  belt,  and  the  outline  of  the 
skirt  all  obey  the  rise  and  fall  of  one  resistless  tide  which  neither 
moon  nor  seasons  control. 

Wherever  civilization  and  education  have  done  the  most  to 
make  individuality  self-conscious  and  rational,  there  it  is  that 
individuality  seeks  most  earnestly  to  merge  itself  in  the  external 
confessions  of  membership  in  the  body  of  the  whole.  What  it 
openly  seeks  in  the  matter  of  external  confession  it  however 
unconsciously  assumes  in  all  the  inner  framework  and  mould- 
forms  of  manners,  customs,  morals,  law,  art,  and  faith.  The 
statement  of  creeds,  the  standards  of  morals,  the  forms  of  art 
men  adopt  without  regard  to  race  and  blood,  or  to  climate  and 
natural  environment.  They  have  them  and  hold  them  as  his 
torical  endowment,  and  their  lives,  no  matter  how  they  may 


THINGS  HUMAN  277 

struggle  to  make  them  otherwise,  no  matter  how  they  may  think 
they  succeed,  are  formal  more  than  they  are  rational,  are  his 
torical  more  than  they  are  begotten  of  the  day. 

It  is  because  man  is  a  social  being  that  he  is  an  historical  be 
ing,  and  a  social  being  he  surely  is  first  and  foremost.  Individual 
ism  and  the  theory  of  individual  rights  are  late  discoveries.  The 
"Individual"  is  scarcely  more  than  a  dried  Praparat,  an  isola 
tion  developed  in  the  glycerine  and  preserved  with  the  alcohol 
of  the  philosophico-legal  laboratories.  Some  very  wise  people 
assume  to  have  found  out  a  century  or  so  ago  that  society  and 
the  social  compact  were  created  out  of  a  voluntary  surrender 
of  individual  rights.  This  holds  good  much  after  the  manner  of 
Mr.  O'Toole's  interpretation  of  the  power  house  at  Niagara,  — 
"  The  machinery  what  pumps  the  water  for  the  Falls." 

It  is  because  man  is  a  social  being  that  he  is  an  historical  be 
ing.  This  does  not  mean  that  by  nature  he  maintains  a  family 
tree  or  revels  in  historical  research.  The  very  social  order,  in 
which  as  the  inseparable  condition  of  his  existence  he  finds  him 
self,  is  an  historical  deposit,  an  historical  resultant.  It  is  indeed 
history  itself,  —  history  pressed  flat,  if  he  only  knew  it,  —  or 
rather,  history  itself  is  the  attempt  to  raise  the  flat  pictures  into 
relief  and  give  them  depth. 

The  historical  interpretation  constitutes  the  only  genuine 
explanation  of  those  complexities  of  condition  and  usage  which 
characterize  the  social  fabric,  and  in  default  of  historical  per 
spective  most  men  at  all  times  and  all  men  at  most  times  simply 
marvel  and  conform.  This  elaborate  and  unaccountable  struc 
ture  of  laws,  usages,  and  religion  impresses  the  normal,  untaught 
mind  as  a  thing  too  solid,  too  intricate,  and  too  vast  to  have  been 
fashioned  by  the  minds  and  hands  of  men  such  as  those  of  the 
day.  Only  gods  or  heroes  could  have  devised  it.  Hence  it  is  that 
the  age  of  heroes  always  precedes  the  age  of  history.  But  Homer 
prepared  the  way  for  Herodotus,  in  that  the  explanation  by  way 
of  the  gods  and  the  heroes  offers  a  first  satisfaction  to  the  first 
groping  quest  as  to  how  this  marvel  of  society  and  state  could 
have  come  to  be.  And  yet  neither  of  the  two  methods  —  that 
by  the  heroes  or  that  by  history  —  does  more  than  skim  the 
surface.  For  most  purposes,  and  for  the  great  mass  of  the  matter, 
we  simply,  with  more  or  less  protest,  conform,  and  are  content 


278  BENJAMIN  IDE  WHEELER 

to  restrict  that  individual  inquiry  and  origination  which  we  like 
to  call  freedom  to  the  close  limits  of  some  snug  private  domain 
well  fenced  from  the  common  and  the  street.  The  labor  is  too 
vast,  the  hope  of  remuneration  too  doubtful,  the  ultimate  bene 
fit  too  questionable,  for  us  to  assail  the  well-established  conven 
tional  orthography  of  society. 

It  is  evidently  more  rational  to  spell  the  word  could  with  a 
cood.  It  may  be  that  some  will  find  it  a  moral  duty  to  truth 
or  to  the  rising  generation  so  to  do,  and  perhaps  they  will  do  it 
merely  for  the  purpose  of  setting  a  good  example.  But  with  all 
the  complexity  of  interests  attaching  to  the  use  of  written  Eng 
lish  as  a  social  vehicle  over  the  great  English-speaking  domain, 
it  looks  veritably  as  if  the  good  example  were  like  to  be  seed 
sown  by  the  wayside.  And  even  if  it  should  take  root  and  bear 
its  ample  fruit  of  phonetic  spellings,  would  it  yet  represent  a 
gain  to  have  shut  the  language  of  the  present  off  from  the  past, 
and  made  the  English  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton  a  dead  lan 
guage  to  the  readers  of  the  next  generation?  We  live  in  a  great 
society  with  all  the  centuries  of  English  thought  since  the  days 
of  Elizabeth,  and  the  written  English  in  the  form  of  a  more  or 
less  established  conventional  orthography  is  the  bond  thereof. 
It  is  very  irrational;  it  is  very  illogical,  so  the  reformer  and  radi 
cal  tell  us,  and  they  are  undoubtedly  correct.  But  the  interest 
ing  feature  of  the  matter  is  that  for  these  persons  the  question 
is  herewith  settled,  and  orthography  is  sentenced  forthwith  to 
violent  death.  If  orthography  is  illogical  they  esteem  it  com 
petent  for  them  to  say,  "So  much  the  worse  for  orthography"; 
but  if  orthography  serves  a  high  and  necessary  purpose  and  still 
is  illogical,  may  it  not  be  competent  for  us  to  say,  "So  much 
the  worse  for  logic"?  We  may  indeed  suspect  that  all  this  logic 
has  been  far  too  shallowly  conceived. 

I  have  not  introduced  this  allusion  to  spelling  and  spelling 
reform  with  any  desire  to  stir  the  peaceful  minds  of  my  readers 
unto  strife,  nor  is  it  my  purpose  to  embroil  myself  with  the  Spell 
ing  Reform  Association  in  this  or  in  any  other  connection.  The 
fact  is,  nothing  furnishes  a  better  illustration  of  the  human- 
social  institutions  such  as  we  are  discussing  than  does  language, 
and  especially  in  those  features  of  its  life  which  reveal  the  proc 
esses  of  standardizing,  and  the  tendency  toward  cooperation 


THINGS  HUMAN  279 

and  uniformity.  The  forces  which  make  toward  establishing 
the  uniformity  of  the  so-called  laws  of  sound  are  ultimately,  as 
social  forces,  the  same  as  those  which  create  the  standard  literary 
idioms  or  Schriftsprachen  and  the  conventional  orthographies. 
They  are  all  one  also  with  those  social  instincts  that  develop 
the  standard  formulas  of  courtesy,  the  usages  of  etiquette,  fash 
ions  in  dress,  standards  of  taste  in  literature  and  art,  the  con 
ventions  of  manners  and  morals,  the  formal  adherences  of  reli 
gion,  and  the  established  law  and  order  of  the  state.  These  are 
all  of  them  the  "things  human"  that  go  with  man  as  a  social, 
historical  being,  and,  of  them  all,  language  as  an  institution  ut 
terly  human,  utterly  social,  utterly  historical  affords  the  clearest 
illustrations  of  those  principles  which  hold  sway  in  this  field  of 
humanity  pure  and  undefiled;  and  so  it  is  that  the  speech-re 
former  in  every  guise  from  the  Volapiikist  to  the  phonetic  speller 
is  typical  in  general  outlook,  method  of  thought,  and  plan  of 
procedure  for  all  the  theorist-reformers  who  have  ever  hung  in 
the  basket  of  a  phrontisterion.  We  hold  no  brief  for  Toryism, 
or  against  the  reformers,  but  to  the  end  that  that  social-mind- 
edness  which  we  incline  to  stamp  as  historical-mindedness  may 
be  sufficiently  set  forth  and  characterized;  we  are  constrained 
to  point  a  contrast  and  isolate  for  use  as  a  foil  the  extreme  op 
posing  type  of  mind  and  attitude  of  life.  It  is  seldom  that  we 
find  a  man  who  is  all  one,  or  all  the  other.  The  concept  theorist 
and  doctrinaire  is  ordinarily  obtained  as  an  abstraction  from 
many  men's  actions  in  many  different  fields,  and  yet  single  speci 
mens  have  been  found  of  almost  typical  purity.  I  imagine,  for 
instance,  that  the  somewhat  ill-defined  term  "crank"  represents 
a  struggle  of  the  language  to  label  an  article  of  humankind  which 
has  been  absolutely  sterilized  from  the  taint  of  historical-mind 
edness.  The  name  crank  is,  I  believe,  a  title  we  reserve  for  other 
people  than  ourselves,  and  in  the  exercise  of  our  own  peculiar 
forms  of  crankhood  we  prefer  to  allude  to  what  we  call  "our 
principles."  It  becomes  therefore  a  somewhat  dangerous  task, 
to  deal  with  the  concept  crank,  lest  we  seem  to  be  laying  pro 
fane  hand  upon  the  sacred  ark  of  principle,  even  though  it  be 
only  to  steady  it  along  the  rough  way  of  human  life. 

I  presume  there  is  nothing  of  which  we  are  more  weakly  proud, 
especially  we  men,  than  our  logic.   And  yet  it  is  our  logic  that 


280  BENJAMIN  IDE  WHEELER 

too  often  makes  fools  of  us.  In  fact,  plain  logic  is  usually  too 
simple  an  apparatus  for  the  need.  The  data  for  the  construc 
tion  of  a  perfect  syllogism  can  only  be  obtained  from  an  artifi 
cially  prepared  cross-section  of  life,  —  which  never  does  it  jus 
tice.  To  operate  with  plane  geometry  and  neglect  the  third 
dimension  on  the  axis  of  historic  order  is  to  do  offence  unto  the 
constitutive  principle  of  human  social  life.  To  be  human  is  to 
be  social,  to  be  social  is  to  be  historical,  and  human  judgments, 
to  be  sound,  must  be  historical  judgments.  Those  judgments 
which,  in  life  affairs,  appear  to  be  the  soundest,  and  which  be 
tray  that  priceless  thing  termed  in  common  parlance  common 
sense,  are  based  on  a  contingent  reasoning  that  frankly  con 
fesses  the  incompleteness  of  its  syllogisms.  The  leap  across  the 
gap  in  the  syllogistic  structure  is  akin  to  that  the  spark  of  wit 
and  humor  takes,  and  the  direct  intuitions  in  which  women  are 
believed  to  deal  with  such  success  are  much  the  same,  though 
the  syllogistic  structure  is  only  sketched  in  dotted  lines. 

Pure  reason  and  plain  logic  have  been  always  much  com 
mended  to  us  as  a  guide  of  life.  They  level  the  rough  places  and 
make  the  crooked  paths  straight.  For  the  sorest  problems  they 
furnish  the  easiest  solutions.  Their  prophets  are  such  as  have 
withdrawn  from  the  world,  and  in  the  quiet  of  their  bedcham 
bers  have  thought  out  the  formulas  of  life.  The  clearest  visions 
that  are  vouchsafed  to  living  men  concerning  the  great  prob 
lems  of  international  finance  are  shown  unto  these  men  in  the 
breezy  freedom  of  the  prairie,  far  from  the  stifling  bustle  of 
Wall  Street  and  its  confusion  of  established  facts. 

Inasmuch  as  life  is  not  logical,  these  men  generally  find  that 
most  things  in  life  are  to  be  disapproved  of,  and  incline  to  be 
pessimists.  For  the  same  reason  they  are  unlikely  to  be  coopera 
tively  inclined,  and  criticize  more  than  they  create.  As  it  is 
much  easier,  by  reason  of  its  shallow  rationality,  to  formulate 
pessimistic  discourse  than  optimistic,  it  follows  that  these  peo 
ple,  and  people  who  temporarily  assume  their  role,  are  more  in 
evidence  in  the  public  press  and  on  the  public  platform  than  their 
relative  numbers  or  importance  would  really  justify. 

It  certainly  would  be  an  unwarranted  generalization  if  I 
should  assume  to  find  the  source  of  all  pessimism  in  this  pseudo- 
logic  of  life,  —  much  of  it  having  of  course  a  physical  and  indeed 


THINGS  HUMAN  281 

specifically  hepatic  source,  —  but  it  is  well  to  mark  the  genetic 
relation  between  the  two,  for  pessimism  is  as  false  to  life  as  logic 
is.  In  human  life,  and  in  all  things  human,  the  inspiring,  life- 
giving,  creative  forces  are  the  inseparable  three,  —  hope  and 
confidence  and  sympathy.  They  are  positive;  they  draw  mate 
rials  and  men  together,  and  scatter  not  asunder;  they  construct 
and  not  destroy.  For  human  use  it  is  evident  that  criticism  was 
intended  by  Providence  as  a  purgative,  not  as  a  food. 

Our  occupation  with  the  phonetic-spelling  reformer  as  type 
of  the  logical  or  pseudo-logical  doctrinaire  has  for  the  time  car 
ried  us  away  from  the  characterization  of  that  historical  order 
in  human  life  with  which  this  discourse  on  things  human  had  its 
beginning,  and  which  we  had  ventured  to  call  the  orthography 
of  human  society. 

Every  year  of  our  swiftly  unfolding  national  history  brings 
to  our  view  with  startling  emphasis  some  illustration  of  the 
great  fact  that  our  national  life  is  composed  out  of  social  condi 
tions  intricately  dovetailed  and  interlaced,  which  have  their 
roots  in  a  history  too  complex  for  the  easy  analysis  of  the  politi 
cal  theorist.  On  every  hand  a  warning  comes  for  political  so 
briety  and  patience.  It  is  now  about  a  quarter  of  a  century  since 
an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  extended  the  ballot  to  the 
negro  of  the  South.  The  action  was  taken  in  deference  to  the 
evidently  logical  application  of  certain  principles  of  human  right 
believed  to  be  well  established.  Those  who  aggressively  favored 
the  action  were  men  of  noblest  purposes,  of  undoubted  patriot 
ism,  and  of  positive  moral  enthusiasm.  The  case  was  to  them 
so  clear  as  to  leave  no  room  for  hesitation  or  doubt.  The  logic 
of  war  had  enforced  the  logic  of  reason.  Time,  however,  has 
now  done  its  clarifying  work,  and  behold,  in  spite  of  all  the 
logics,  the  social  facts  that  were  there,  lying  in  wait,  have  re 
asserted  themselves.  In  the  name  of  consistency  a  violence  had 
been  done.  Despite  all  our  aversion  to  the  evasion  of  the  writ 
ten  law,  the  people  of  the  North,  so  far  as  one  may  infer  from 
public  expressions,  have  quietly,  slowly,  withdrawn  from  the 
field  of  protest,  leaving  the  historical  facts  to  do  their  own  sweet 
will  and  work,  community  by  community,  State  by  State.  War 
and  logic  prevailed  at  the  first,  the  historical  facts  prevail  at 
the  end. 


282  BENJAMIN  IDE  WHEELER 

We  as  a  people  are  said  to  come  of  a  practical-minded  stock, 
and  that  practical-mindedness  which  made  the  English  Con 
stitution  asserts  itself  continuously  in  our  national  life,  as  we 
show  over  and  over  again  our  capacity  flexibly  to  adjust  our 
selves,  both  as  people  and  as  government,  to  the  changing  con 
ditions  which  arise  about  us  and  reshape  our  duty  and  our  oppor 
tunity.  The  recent  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  tangled  as 
they  seemed  at  first  report,  resolve  themselves  into  a  plain  sig 
nificance  as  regards  their  main  bent.  The  letter  of  the  law  writ 
ten  in  view  of  distinctly  different  conditions  and  for  radically 
different  purposes  and  safeguards  cannot  restrain  the  people 
through  their  representatives  in  Parliament  or  Congress  from 
devising  means  of  procedure  that  shall  satisfy  existing  needs. 
Whether  we  assume  to  live  by  written  or  unwritten  constitu 
tion,  it  will  always  be,  with  a  people  such  as  we  by  spirit  and 
tradition  are,  the  constitution  written  in  the  people's  life 
and  work  that  holds  the  sway  supreme.  There  must  be  after 
all  some  deep  philosophy  in  Mr.  Dooley's  apprehension  that 
whether  the  flag  follows  the  Constitution  or  the  Constitution 
the  flag,  the  decisions  of  the  Court  follow  the  election  returns. 

Five  years  ago  we  were  in  the  midst  of  a  frenzy  of  popular 
logic  on  the  currency  question  which  has  now  so  far  abated, 
leaving  so  few  traces  that  it  cannot  be  considered  urisuited  for 
mention  under  the  far-famed  shelter  of  the  academic  freedom. 
The  supporters  of  the  doctrine  of  the  free  coinage  of  silver  were, 
I  believe,  in  the  main  sincere.  The  doctrine  was  easier  to  under 
stand  and  advocate  than  its  opposite.  Its  simple,  crystalline 
logic  appealed  particularly  to  large  masses  of  people  who  are 
impatient  of  complicated  historical  instruction,  but  to  whom,  as 
to  all  of  us  humans,  it  is  a  high  satisfaction  to  think  they  are 
thinking.  The  opposing  doctrine  labored  under  the  embarrass 
ment  of  being  founded  in  the  historical  facts  of  established  inter 
national  usage,  but  in  its  good  time  the  historical  logic  prevailed 
over  its  shallower  counterpart,  as  it  must  needs  always  do. 

It  is  always  a  prolific  source  of  danger  in  a  government  such 
as  ours  that  parties  are  tempted  to  set  forth  in  platforms  far- 
reaching  policies  which  seek  their  grounding  in  smoothly  stated 
a  priori  principles  of  right  and  government.  These  strokes  of 
radicalism,  like  the  French  radicalism  and  its  argument  from 


THINGS  HUMAN  283 

the  state  of  nature,  serve  to  clear  the  air,  though  usually  at  high 
cost,  and  we  should  not  like  to  see  them  utterly  withheld  from 
the  people,  and  a  politics  of  organizational  and  personal  strug 
gles  utterly  displace  them.  The  safer  and  more  veracious  use  of 
the  party  platform  will  be  that  which  deals  with  questions  with 
in  practical  range  and  proposes  policies  in  reference  to  existing 
actual  conditions.  It  is  not  necessary  to  explore  the  ultimate 
problem  of  the  origin  of  evil  and  original  sin  every  time  a  hen 
roost  is  robbed. 

The  manners  and  morals  of  any  social  community  at  any 
given  time  constitute  a  firm  historical  deposit,  with  sanctions  and 
guarantees  so  strong  that  the  hammer  and  acids  of  analyzing 
reason  find  it  an  ill-paid  task  to  stir  them.  There  are  men  who 
have  thought  it  worth  while  to  raise  persistent  protest  against 
that  gentle  convention  which  garbs  us  in  the  dress  coat.  It 
would  be  an  easy  matter  doubtless  to  prove  after  reflection  its 
unworthiness  as  protection  for  the  lungs  or  thighs,  and  it  might 
be  difficult  to  defend  it  against  a  proposition  to  redispose  its 
material  by  transfer  from  back  to  front,  but  the  dress  coat  is 
there,  and  convenience  uses  it  rather  than  serves  it.  This  is  far 
easier  than  to  think  out  a  new  coat  on  eternal  principles  every 
year.  In  general  the  issue  does  not  appeal  to  the  interest  of  the 
great  public,  and  no  one  is  likely  to  find  his  political  fortunes 
advanced  by  any  manipulation  thereof. 

That  institution  of  civilized  society,  the  family,  framed 
through  the  uniting  of  one  man  and  one  wife  until  death  do  them 
part,  is  an  institution  confirmed  in  the  testings  and  pains  and 
joys  of  centuries  of  human  experience.  It  is  anchored  and  framed 
and  jointed  into  the  very  fabric  of  society,  until  society  is  un 
thinkable  without  it.  In  the  presence  of  a  social  structure  so 
established,  and  whose  existence  and  purity  are  bound  up  with 
the  very  life  of  society,  there  is  no  place  for  the  small  query- 
ings  of  the  theorist.  If  he  abides  among  us  he  will  conform. 
Society  cannot  tolerate,  and  will  not,  that  one  family  be  dis 
solved  and  another  "announced"  at  the  instance  of  some  per 
sonal  convenience  or  some  shallow  logic  of  affinities. 

There  is  a  certain  law  and  order  which  human  society  must 
insist  upon  as  a  prior  condition  to  all  discussion  regarding  forms 
and  mechanism  of  government  and  distribution  of  rights  and 


284  BENJAMIN  IDE  WHEELER 

privileges.  The  first  thing  to  do  with  a  debating  society  is  to 
call  it  to  order.  The  first  thing  to  teach  a  child  is  to  do  what  it 
is  told  to  do,  and  for  the  reason  that  it  is  told  to.  Other  reasons 
await  the  more  placid  opportunity  afforded  by  complete  paci 
fication.  We  have  of  late,  in  educational  matters,  been  travers 
ing  a  period  of  much  experimenting  and  much  unsettling  of 
views  and  aims  and  methods.  One  may  not  therefore  with  any 
confidence  expect  a  general  agreement  upon  any  proposition, 
however  elementary.  It  has  seemed  to  me  nevertheless  that 
there  ought  to  be  agreement,  even  if  there  is  not,  concerning 
one  thing,  namely,  that  our  aim  in  educating  is  to  make  the 
individual  more  effective  as  a  member  of  human  society,  — 
I  would  indeed  venture  to  make  it  read,  "effective  for  good." 
If  education  addressed  itself  simply  to  the  development  of  the 
individual  as  an  unclothed  immortal  soul,  the  mundane  state 
would  scarcely  be  justified  in  its  present  interest.  It  is  as  a  pro 
spective  member  of  society  and  a  citizen  that  the  pupil  claims 
the  interest  of  a  school-supporting  state.  An  education  which 
now  accepts  this  definition  of  its  aim  cannot  admit  itself  to  be 
in  first  line  a  branch  or  dependency  of  biology.  Children  are 
little  animals  surely  enough,  but  it  is  for  our  practical  purposes 
immeasurably  more  important  that  they  are  incipient  social 
beings.  That  the  biological  theory  of  education  has  exercised 
in  many  a  detail  an  injurious  influence  on  the  practice  of  the 
schools  I  believe  has  not  escaped  the  attention  of  many  of  us. 
One  leading  result  has  been  a  groping  vagueness  that  has  pos 
sessed  the  minds  of  teachers  and  professors  of  teaching  them 
selves,  a  vagueness  which  has  arisen  through  cutting  loose  from 
the  solid  piers  of  the  historical  facts,  close  akin  to  that  which 
we  mark  in  the  vagrant  discipline  which  seeks  to  deal  with 
society  apart  from  history  and  decorates  itself  with  the  name 
of  sociology. 

The  education  that  educates  remains  in  spite  of  all  the  vivi 
sections  and  post-mortems  a  training,  —  a  training  that  adapts 
and  fits  the  little  barbarian  to  his  civilized  environment,  an 
environment  in  part  natural,  to  be  sure,  but  preeminently  so 
cial  and  historical,  a  training  that  makes  him  punctual,  dutiful, 
obedient,  conscientious,  courteous,  and  observant,  self-con 
trolled,  law-abiding,  and  moral,  and  gives  him  sobriety  of  judg- 


THINGS  HUMAN  285 

ment,  and  encourages  health  to  abound,  health  of  body  and 
mind,  which  is  no  more  nor  less  than  sanity. 

In  the  attitude  toward  human  life  there  abide  the  two  con 
trasted  types.  One  is  the  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness,  the  man 
clad  in  skins,  ascetic,  teetotaler,  radical,  reformer,  agitator; 
and  of  him  they  say  he  hath  a  devil,  he  is  a  crank.  His  mission 
is  to  awake  with  a  ringing  "Repent"  the  dormant  public  mind 
and  stir  the  public  conscience,  but  in  him  is  no  safe  uplifting 
and  upbuilding  power.  His  errand  is  fulfilled  in  a  day,  and  after 
him  there  cometh  one  whose  shoe  latchet  he  is  unworthy  to 
loose,  —  the  man  among  men,  the  Man-Son,  living  the  normal 
life  of  men,  accepting  the  standing  order,  paying  tribute  unto 
Caesar,  touching  elbows  with  men  of  the  world,  respecting  the 
conventions  of  society,  healing  and  helping  men  from  the  com 
mon  standing-ground  of  human  life. 

The  call  which  comes  to  the  university  from  the  need  of  the 
day  is  a  call  for  trained  men;  not  extraordinary  specimens  of  men, 
but  normal  men;  not  eccentrics,  but  gentlemen;  not  stubborn 
Tories  or  furious  radicals,  but  men  of  sobriety  and  good  sense, 
men  of  good  health  and  sanity,  —  men  trained  in  the  school 
of  historical-mindedness. 


HUMANITIES,  GONE  AND  TO  COME 

BY   FELIX  EMANUEL   SCHELLING 

Delivered  before  the  Delta  of  Pennsylvania,  at  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 

June  18,  1902. 

NEARLY  five  generations  of  men  have  come  and  gone  since 
this  society  sprang  into  life;  its  purpose  the  nurture  and  encour 
agement  of  liberal  studies  by  a  public  recognition  of  those  whose 
young  steps  have  begun  worthily  to  tread  the  pathways  of  the 
humanities.  The  idols  that  men  rear  and  worship  change  as 
men  change;  and  time  sheds  tears  or  bestows  mockery  on  the 
broken  images  of  the  ideals  that  have  been  but  are  no  more.  No 
symbol  that  has  roused  the  spirit  of  human  devotion  can  be  a 
thing  wholly  unworthy  or  without  its  significance.  It  is  of  some 
of  these  idols  in  education,  fallen  or  yet  upright,  that  I  wish  to 
speak  to  you.  And  I  wish  especially  to  dwell  on  the  spirit  that 
once  reared  them  on  their  pedestals  and  brought  them  honest 
devotees,  rather  than  to  dilate  on  the  iconoclasm  that  has  shat 
tered  their  beauties  in  indiscriminate  destruction. 

Retrospect  is  the  privilege  of  age;  prophecy,  the  foible  of 
youth.  I  can  lay  claim  to  your  indulgence  for  neither.  The  pres 
ent  is  only  a  passing  link  in  the  swiftly  running  chain  of  time. 
It  fixes  the  eye  but  for  a  moment.  He  that  neglects  the  past 
neglects  that  which  has  made  him  what  he  is.  He  that  neglects 
the  promises  and  the  warnings  of  the  present  as  to  things  to 
come,  as  to  things  which  he  may  help  to  shape  in  their  coming, 
is  already  floating,  a  mere  piece  of  wreckage  on  the  ocean  of 
time. 

The  humanities,  the  liberal  arts:  these  words  call  up  to  the 
minds  of  many  of  us,  who  are  not  wholly  unlettered,  a  thing 
in  some  mysterious  manner  connected  with  the  study  of  the 
classics,  a  something  opposed  to  science  and  to  the  study  of 
nature,  a  something  very  impractical  and  very  desirable  to 
possess,  if  you  do  not  lose  bread  and  butter  by  it;  a  thing  much 
talked  of  at  commencements,  and  happily,  for  the  most  part, 


HUMANITIES,  GONE  AND  TO  COME  287 

forgotten  meanwhile.  Indeed,  the  popular  conception  of  the 
humanities  is  not  unlike  an  Eton  boy's  knowledge  of  Latin  and 
Greek,  not  so  much  a  definite  conception  as  an  ineffaceable  im 
pression  that  there  really  are  such  tongues,  and  that  it  is  a  very 
disagreeable  thing  to  have  much  to  do  with  them.  The  humani 
ties  !  the  very  term  is  redolent  of  times  long  gone  and  smacking 
of  generations  before  the  last.  Beside  glittering,  new-minted 
epithets  like  "sociology,"  "criminology,"  and  "degeneracy," 
the  very  word  "humanities"  looks  dim  and  faded  in  this  new 
century  which  has  entered  upon  its  run  with  the  gathered 
momentum  of  a  hundred  years  of  effort  behind  it. 

No  word  is  constant  in  its  significance;  nor  is  the  expression, 
"the  humanities,"  an  exception  to  this  rule.  The  humanities, 
"those  studies  which  involve  the  mental  cultivation  befitting 
a  man,"  have  varied  with  the  ideal  of  manhood;  and  the  man  of 
one  age,  derided  and  misunderstood,  has  often  become  the  cari 
cature  of  the  next.  In  the  Europe  of  the  fourteenth  century  the 
idea  of  "humanity"  was  habitually  contrasted  with  that  of 
divinity;  and  "the  humanities"  were  conceived  of  as  constitut 
ing  the  body  of  secular  learning  as  distinguished  from  theological 
erudition.  In  that  conception  of  manhood  which  transmuted 
each  full-grown  male  into  a  miniature  steel  fortress,  bristling 
with  weapons  and  offence,  cherishing  his  honor,  his  lady  and  his 
life  supereminently  as  things  to  fight  for,  the  humanities  could 
be  nothing  if  they  were  not  unclerical.  What  had  chanting  priests 
to  do  with  the  graces  of  courtly  young  manhood,  any  more  than 
they  had  to  do  with  the  exercise  of  arms  or  with  the  grand  me 
nage  of  horses  of  war?  But  though  this  ideal  was  unclerical,  it 
harked  backward  to  the  classics;  for  whether  it  was  in  the  songs 
of  the  courts  of  love,  in  the  romances  of  chivalrous  King  Arthur, 
the  Cid  or  Charlemagne,  in  protracted  discourses  on  morals,  or 
the  calamities  that  had  befallen  great  heroes,  the  ancients  were 
recognized  as  the  only  source  of  that  sweet  but  profane  learning 
wherein  the  heathen  world  of  old  had  excelled  and  to  the  charm 
of  which  all  subsequent  ages  have  been  fain  to  subscribe.  Hence 
the  arts  and  graces  which  dignified  life  and  made  it  beautiful  — 
poetry,  music,  and  the  knowledge  of  tongues,  especially  the 
classical  tongues,  —  came,  with  the  Renaissance,  to  be  recog 
nized  as  the  studies  which  involved  the  mental  and  aesthetic 


288  FELIX  EMANUEL  SCHELLING 

cultivation  most  properly  befitting  a  man.  And,  however  far  the 
violence  and  barbarism  of  the  earlier  Middle  Ages  may  have 
frustrated  these  ideals  from  a  realization  measurably  complete, 
their  bare  existence  tended  not  a  little  to  the  amelioration  of  the 
social  conditions  of  those  times. 

As  the  world  emerged  into  the  greater  stability  of  modern 
political  life,  while  adhering  as  yet  to  much  of  the  antique  charm 
and  picturesqueness  of  the  mediaeval  times,  it  was  to  this  ideal 
of  cultivated  manhood  that  Sir  Philip  Sidney  conformed. 
Among  the  cares  of  war,  of  colonization  and  statecraft,  in  assid 
uous  attendance  upon  an  incomparable,  but  variable  and  exact 
ing,  queen,  Sidney  none  the  less  found  time  to  cultivate  the 
humanities  in  the  practice  of  poetry  after  the  manner  of  the 
ancients  as  well  as  in  the  ardent  modern  Italian  way,  in  the  com 
position  of  chivalric  and  pastoral  romance  and  in  the  discussion 
with  his  friends  of  Aristotelian  poetics  and  Machiavellian  polity. 
The  paragon  of  social  and  political  graces,  the  generous  patron 
of  learning,  the  rare  poet  and  passionate  lover,  the  courtly  and 
chivalrous  gentleman,  the  man  of  simple  and  unblemished 
loyalty  and  faith,  —  all  of  these  was  Sidney,  adored  as  the  ex 
ample  and  the  idol  of  his  time.  And  Sidney  was  so  adored  be 
cause  of  the  perfection  with  which  he  fulfilled  the  Renaissance 
ideal  of  the  humanities  in  their  effect  on  vigorous  young  English 
manhood. 

In  the  sweeping  revisions  and  restatements  to  which  Bacon 
submitted  all  the  formulas  of  his  age,  the  humanities  by  no 
means  escaped.  Neglecting  historical  significance  and  current 
popular  notions  alike,  Bacon  retained  the  contrast  between  hu 
man  and  divine  learning  and,  by  a  simple  return  to  roots,  de 
fined  the  humanities  as  human  philosophy:  "Which  hath/'  to 
use  his  words,  "two  parts.  The  one  considereth  man  segregate 
or  distributively,  the  other  congregate  or  in  society.  Humanity 
consisteth  of  knowledges  which  respect  the  body  and  of  knowl 
edges  which  respect  the  mind."  1  In  modern  parlance  it  is 
anatomy,  psychology,  and  what  is  now  somewhat  vaguely  called 
"sociology,"  which  Bacon  considered  as  the  threefold  humani 
ties  or  studies  appertaining  to  man;  and  the  last  "sociology" 
(if  I  may  venture  again  on  the  use  of  so  disputed  a  term),  Bacon 
1  The  Advancement  of  Learning,  Bacon's  Works,  ed.  1841,  u,  201. 


HUMANITIES,  GONE  AND  TO  COME  289 

could  have  conceived  only  in  the  logical  sense  in  which  it  em 
braces  all  study  of  language,  literature,  history,  politics,  archae 
ology,  and  art.  We  may  thus  accredit  to  Bacon  a  remarkable 
widening  of  the  earlier  conception  of  the  humanities  and  ascribe 
to  him,  as  well,  the  earliest  recognition  of  science  as  among  them. 

With  the  coming  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  conception 
of  the  humanities  had  undergone  another  transformation.  The 
century  opened  with  the  smoke  of  a  trivially  momentous  contro 
versy  rolling  heavily  to  windward.  This  discussion  concerned 
the  relative  merits  of  ancient  and  modern  learning.  Sir  William 
Temple  had  just  succeeded  in  proving  to  his  own  complete  satis 
faction  that  the  ancients  were  really  the  superior  poets.  To  the 
achievement  of  this  result  he  was  compelled,  wittingly  or  in 
nocently,  to  omit  any  mention  of  the  names  of  Dante,  Chaucer, 
Spenser,  Shakespeare,  Calderon,  Moliere,  or  Milton.  Temple, 
moreover,  enthusiastically  praised  several  Greek  writers  whose 
works  it  may  be  more  than  suspected  he  could  not  read.  Years 
later,  Oliver  Goldsmith  addressed  the  world  in  his  Enquiry 
into  the  Present  State  of  Polite  Learning  in  Europe,  an  inquiry 
for  which  that  delightful  essayist  and  dramatist  was  fitted  chiefly 
by  his  triumphant  completion  of  a  protracted  career  of  idleness 
pursued  at  at  least  three  of  the  most  learned  universities  of  the 
British  Islands  and  the  continent. 

There  were  good  scholars  in  the  England  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  but  the  cultivator  of  the  amenities  of  literature  felt 
that  an  apology  was  due  the  world  for  his  aberrations  from  the 
practical  highways  of  life.  The  great  poet,  Gray,  preferred 
anonymity  to  any  repute  that  might  come  to  him  as  the  author 
of  his  famous  Elegy  Written  in  a  Country  Churchyard;  and 
Horace  Walpole  concealed  the  authorship  of  his  novel,  The 
Castle  of  Otranto,  as  if  it  were  a  flagrant  offence  for  a  gentle 
man  to  sully  his  hand  with  the  penning  of  romance.  Indeed,  the 
age  which  produced  such  artistic  trivialities,  such  delicate  arti 
cles  of  vertu  as  the  letters  of  this  same  Horace  Walpole  or  that 
impeccable  code  social  for  the  guidance  of  youth  by  my  Lord 
Chesterfield,  his  Letters,  equally  artistic  and  equally  fragile 
—  surely  such  an  age  could  have  little  need  to  emphasize  the 
antithesis  between  "the  humanities"  and  divine  learning.  But 
the  eighteenth  century  had  its  distinctions,  none  the  less,  and 


290  FELIX  EMANUEL  SCHELLING 

was  painfully  careful  to  construct  an  impenetrable  barrier  be 
tween  such  knowledge  as  might  be  presumed  to  adhere,  like 
clay,  to  vulgar,  everyday  mankind,  and  the  finer  humanities 
which  could  appertain  to  fastidious  gentility  alone.  "A  cad,  my 
son,*'  said  an  eighteenth-century  father,  in  reply  to  a  question 
as  to  the  habitat  and  earmarks  of  that  common  and  unpleasing 
variety  of  the  human  species,  "a  cad,  my  son,  is  a  man  whose 
Latin  quantities  are  out  at  heel.  Beware  of  him."  Such  was  the 
shibboleth  of  that  age.  The  word  "humanity"  had  come  to 
mean  "polite  learning,"  not  the  studies  which  involve  the  mental 
cultivation  befitting  a  man,  but,  emphatically  and  avowedly, 
those  studies  which  involve  the  mental  cultivation  supposedly 
appropriate  to  the  fine  gentleman. 

In  England  the  superstition  is  still  cherished  that  if  a  young 
man  be  carefully  trained  to  pass  a  competitive  examination, 
winning  from  his  fellows  in  Catullus  or  in  the  fragments  of  the 
obscurer  Greek  lyrists,  he  may  somehow  prove  in  time  the  better 
ruler  for  Punjab  or  Sindh.  This  superstition  —  and  is  it  wholly 
a  superstition?  —  is  based  in  part  on  a  sentiment  that  the  gentle 
man,  after  all,  is  very  good  material  with  which  to  begin.  It  is 
the  gentleman  ordinarily,  and  not  the  cad,  who  has  had  alike 
the  leisure  and,  what  is  far  more  important,  the  temper  to  study 
Catullus,  or  the  disposition  to  expend  time  on  the  Greek  frag 
ments.  And  it  is  the  man,  after  all,  that  has  been  developed 
by  these  impractical  studies;  and,  with  the  man,  those  lesser 
things,  the  gentleman  and  the  potential  governor  of  Punjab  or 
Sindh.  Nay,  is  it  in  any  wise  superstitious  to  believe,  in  England 
or  elsewhere,  that  a  sword  is  best  whetted  on  that  which  it  is 
destined  never  to  cut?  and  that  without  the  necessary  prelimi 
naries  of  whetting,  pointing,  and  tempering,  many  a  pretty 
thrust  and  trick  of  swordsmanship  must  prove  in  the  end  but 
vain? 

The  earliest  American  college  was  conceived  as  a  school  pre 
paratory  to  the  study  of  divinity;  for  few  save  the  intending 
clergy  could  spare  the  time  to  acquire  learning,  on  its  face  a 
thing  so  unimperative  to  the  needs  of  everyday  colonial  life. 
As  time  went  on  it  was  felt  that  the  languages  of  Greece  and 
Rome  had  a  value  besides  their  use  as  lights  wherewith  to  search 
the  Scriptures.  With  the  example  of  English  education  before 


HUMANITIES,  GONE  AND  TO  COME  291 

them,  with  men  who  had  come  to  the  New  World  with  the  learn 
ing,  the  habits,  and  the  prejudices  of  the  universities  of  England 
and  Scotland,  the  American  college  set  up  its  ideal  of  the  hu 
manities,  and  in  so  doing  naturally  interpreted  the  liberal  arts 
to  mean  primarily  the  classics,  often  the  classics  alone. 

This  ideal  has  abided  despite  many  attacks,  if  somewhat 
battered  of  late;  and  it  has  shown  throughout  the  period  of  its 
maintenance  the  mingled  strength  and  weakness  that  distin 
guish  a  principle  nearly,  but  not  quite  wholly,  true.  There  is 
little  need  that  I  should  rehearse  to  you  —  who  know  it  so  well 
—  the  strength  of  that  ideal  which  upholds  the  advantages  of  a 
classical  education;  or  tell  how  we  may  claim  that  no  modern 
tongue  can  afford  in  its  organic  structure  the  discipline  of  Latin 
and  Greek,  in  which,  in  the  words  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  "every 
sentence  is  a  lesson  in  logic."  Nor  need  I  tell  how  we  can  view 
no  modern  language  with  the  completeness  with  which  we  can 
view  these  tongues  of  the  past,  or  with  the  certainty  as  to  the 
stability  of  the  scientific  facts  which  they  present;  how  the  lit 
erature  of  the  ancients,  especially  that  of  Greece,  affords  us  un 
equalled  examples  of  the  perfection  and  harmony  of  literary  art, 
and  may  as  soon  be  omitted  from  the  study  of  the  student  of 
general  literature  as  antique  sculpture  may  be  omitted  from  the 
study  of  art;  or  how  in  the  study  of  ancient  philosophy  we  travel 
back,  so  to  speak,  along  those  rays  of  light  that  have  illumined 
the  world  for  twenty-three  centuries  to  that  Greek  prism,  the 
crystal  sides  of  which  are  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  that 
centre  of  light  wherein  lies  focused  the  concentrated  radiance  of 
all  human  learning.  These  things  are  known  to  most  of  us  and 
acknowledged  by  all  except  those  in  whom  ignorance  or  want  of 
opportunity  has  bred  contempt  for  what  they  have  not,  or  those 
whom  the  life-sapping  blight  of  hand-to-mouth  utilitarianism 
has  stricken  deaf  and  blind,  but  unhappily  not  dumb. 

The  opponents  of  classical  studies,  if  not  of  the  humanities 
in  a  larger  sense,  have  been  for  the  most  part  two;  first,  the  ex 
ponents  of  the  superior  advantages  which  they  claim  for  a  purely 
scientific  education,  and,  secondly,  the  utilitarians.  Who  can 
deny  the  force  of  the  enticing  appeal  that  bids  us  return  to  na 
ture  and  read  in  the  spacious  volume  which  she  lavishly  spreads 
before  us  year  after  year  the  absorbing  story  of  this  visible  world? 


292  FELIX  EMANUEL  SCHELLING 

Even  the  demand,  sometimes  made  in  the  past,  that  scientific 
studies  be  substituted  all  but  wholly  for  the  older  humanities 
might  be  in  a  measure  excused  from  that  natural  and  creditable 
zeal  which  is  born  of  the  fervor  of  propaganda.  Indeed,  the 
demands  of  these  reformers  were  often  not  more  unreasonable 
than  the  replies  of  men  blindly  adherent  to  the  traditions  of  a 
system  of  education  antiquated  and  no  longer  effective.  But 
this  warfare  is  now  a  thing  of  the  past.  No  one  now  denies  the 
value,  even  the  imperative  need,  for  science  as  an  integral  part 
of  the  education  of  the  day;  just  as  few  any  longer  refuse  to 
recognize  the  liberalizing  influences  of  the  study  of  our  own  and 
of  foreign  modern  tongues.  There  is  no  weakness  in  a  strenuous 
advocacy  of  a  study  of  the  classics;  there  is  much  unwisdom  in 
claiming  for  the  classics  alone  that  liberalizing  influence  which 
they  possess  in  so  high  a  degree,  but  which  they  share  with 
many  other  studies.  There  is  positive  falsity  in  the  position 
which  some  have  taken,  the  attitude  of  opposition  to  the  study 
of  science;  and  there  is  absolute  injustice  in  the  denial  of  the 
liberalizing  capabilities  of  a  study  of  the  sciences  liberally  con 
ducted.  No  subject  to  which  man  can  give  his  studious  attention, 
no  subject  wherein  a  man  may  discover  truth  to  add  by  his  dis 
covery  to  the  sum  of  human  knowledge  or  to  create  therewith 
newer  and  juster  views  than  those  which  obtained  before,  should 
be  denied  a  place  among  the  humanities.  But  the  subject  must 
be  pursued  with  that  disinterestedness,  that  freedom  from  ul 
terior  motives  of  practical  utility,  which  alone  can  permit  a  free 
play  of  its  liberalizing  elements.  It  is  their  practical  uselessness 
—  that  is,  their  inapplicability  to  ulterior  ends  —  which  has 
given  and  will  continue  to  give  to  the  classics,  with  pure  math 
ematics,  aesthetics,  and  philosophy,  a  palpable  advantage  over 
the  sciences  and  modern  languages  among  the  humanities.  In 
a  word,  the  measure  of  the  educational  value  of  the  humanities 
lies  in  their  practical  inutility.  A  sword  is  best  whetted  on  that 
which  it  is  destined  never  to  cut. 

And  now  that  this  battle  is  won  and  science  has  taken  her 
place  beside  her  sister,  the  arts,  in  administering  that  cultiva 
tion  which  is  befitting  the  man,  we  begin  to  recognize  to  the  full 
the  value  of  this  broader  conception  of  the  humanities.  We  have 
learned  that  neither  our  arts  nor  our  young  bachelors  are  con- 


HUMANITIES,  GONE  AND  TO  COME  293 

slant  quantities  to  be  combined  with  the  inevitable  result  of  the 
union  of  two  chemical  elements.  We  have  learned  that  men 
may  be  liberalized  by  the  mathematics  and  biology  and  remain 
illiberal  in  the  atrium  of  Greek  poetry  or  among  the  arcana  of 
ancient  philosophy.  We  have  learned,  in  short,  that  men  can 
no  more  be  educated  after  one  pattern  than  fitted  on  a  single 
last;  that  neither  the  chivalrous  type  of  Sidney,  the  virtuosity  of 
Walpole,  nor  the  clerical  cut  of  old  New  England  can  suffice  for 
all  ages  and  climates;  but  that  age  strides  after  age  and  that  our 
ideals  in  education,  like  our  ideals  in  all  things  else,  need  adapta 
tion  to  present  needs  and  the  exercise  of  a  wise  but  conservative 
foresight  for  the  future.  Indeed,  in  the  recognition  of  all  this  we 
may  now  well  pause  to  inquire  if  the  habit  of  change  has  not 
grown  inveterate  upon  us  and  if,  in  our  zeal  to  fit  the  individual 
at  the  present  moment,  we  have  not  lost  sight  of  his  own  future 
development  and  of  the  relations  of  each  to  all. 

The  present  is  no  moment  for  supine  self -congratulation. 
The  humanities  to-day  are  front  to  front  with  an  attack  in  com 
parison  with  which  all  previous  menaces  sink  into  insignificance 
itself.  We  have  no  longer  to  fight  for  the  study  of  Greek  or  to 
relegate  to  her  proper  place  the  exorbitant  claims  of  the  youngest 
and  boldest  of  the  sciences.  We  are  in  struggle  for  the  very 
principle  of  liberality  in  education  itself,  and,  worst  of  all,  our 
enemy  is  within,  and  is  often  a  neighbor  or  a  brother.  Practical 
utility  is  by  far  the  most  insidious  enemy  of  modern  education 
and  the  chiefest  barrier  to  the  attainment  of  that  higher  intel 
lectual  and  spiritual  life  toward  which  the  nobler  members  of  the 
race  are  striving.  And  by  utility  here  I  mean  not  that  broad  and 
philosophical  outlook  which  recognizes  the  ultimate  value  and 
potency  of  all  things  human  by  the  completeness  and  success 
with  which  each  performs  its  function  in  life;  but  that  cheap 
reckoning  up  of  commercial  values,  that  near-sighted  and  nig 
gardly  view  of  man  and  life  in  the  light  of  petty  immediate  gains, 
that  reduction  of  things,  both  human  and  divine,  to  monetary 
standards  which  paralyzes  liberal  and  disinterested  endeavor 
and  fills  our  learned  professions  —  save  the  mark !  —  with  expert 
but  narrow  and  unlettered  men.  Utility  in  education  demands 
that  we  hurry  our  boys  into  the  professional  schools  before  they 
are  ready  for  college,  or  thrust  them  through  or  out  of  college 


294  FELIX  EMANUEL  SCHELLING 

before  they  are  old  enough  to  appreciate  their  advantages. 
Utility  demands  that  we  interlard  the  humanities  with  technical 
and  professional  work  by  turning  as  many  studies  as  possible 
into  their  practical  applications.  Utility  demands  devices  of 
short  cuts  and  special  courses  and  the  invention  of  specific 
courses  which  it  is  hoped  may  prove  alluring  to  the  uncultured 
and  the  uninformed.  In  short,  utility  in  education  destroys  the 
very  ideal  for  which  the  university  was  created  and  transforms 
the  institution  in  which  it  becomes  a  ruling  incentive  from  the 
leader  and  guide  of  the  community  at  large  into  a  submissive 
follower  in  the  wake  of  a  degenerating  public  opinion. 

The  excellence  of  American  technical  and  professional  schools 
is  our  glory  and  our  pride.  Where  ingenuity,  adaptability,  tech 
nical  aptitude,  and  energy  which  tires  not  nor  is  daunted  are  in 
demand,  American  technical  education  need  yield  to  none.  If 
American  lawyers  are  at  times  a  little  less  grave  in  their  learn 
ing,  they  are  more  agile  in  their  thought  than  their  cousins  across 
the  water;  if  American  divines  are  less  frequently  historians  and 
philosophers  than  British  divines,  if  American  diplomacy  is 
somewhat  more  rough  and  ready,  and  a  trifle  less  successful  in 
finesse,  nay  even  though  not  quite  all  the  scientific  discoveries, 
from  the  circulation  of  the  blood  to  the  Roentgen  rays  and  wire 
less  telegraphy,  have  been  made  in  America,  we  yet  can  have 
nothing  but  pride  for  the  learning,  the  skill,  the  success,  and  the 
firm  and  resistless  forward  tread  of  those  who  grace  the  learned 
professions  in  America.  But  if  our  professions  are  to  advance, 
even  if  they  are  to  continue  what  they  are,  depend  upon  it  that 
an  increasing  technical  standard,  a  course  of  greater  length, 
more  laboratories  and  minuter  specialization  cannot  alone  ac 
complish  it.  More  important  than  all  these  things,  more  im 
portant  than  specific  qualifications,  are  the  temper  of  mind,  the 
outlook  of  the  student  entering  upon  professional  studies,  and 
the  attitude  which  he  takes  toward  his  chosen  career.  This  at 
titude  is  the  product  of  school  and  college  life,  and  is  acquired 
by  subtle  influences  which  build  up  character  or  undermine  it. 
If  the  golden  calf  of  utility  is  worshipped  in  the  class-roorn  as  well 
as  in  the  streets,  and  perhaps  even  in  the  family,  the  student's 
attitude  will  become  that  of  the  alert  and  active  devotee  of  that 
philosophy  whose  one  mandate  is,  "Succeed!"  Such  a  man  may 


HUMANITIES,  GONE  AND  TO  COME  295 

reach  in  later  life  a  certain  worldly  success,  but  he  will  remain 
in  all  essentials  a  professional  quack  and  an  influence  working, 
according  to  his  power,  more  or  less  for  evil.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  liberalizing  power  of  the  humanities,  be  their  content 
what  it  may,  has  been  exerted  to  the  full  upon  him,  the  young 
professional  student  will  appreciate  his  responsibilities  as  well 
as  his  capabilities,  and  holding  both  as  a  sacred  trust,  live  a 
power  among  his  fellow-men,  working  for  good.  Our  concern  is 
first  with  the  man.  The  man  once  made,  all  else  will  follow. 

We  are  sometimes  told  that  the  moral  tone  of  the  university 
is  lower  than  that  of  the  outside  world,  that  the  mingled  re 
straints  and  freedom  of  college  life,  nay,  even  the  pursuit  of 
learning  itself,  make  not  for  righteousness,  nor  probity,  nor  ideal 
conduct.  The  logic  of  such  doctrine  as  this  is  the  abolition  of 
learning.  Far  better  were  it  that  these  walls  should  stand  for 
all  time  a  blackened  ruin  than  that  they  should  foster  the  school 
of  iniquity  and  degradation  which  such  a  notion  infers.  That 
young  men,  a  large  part  of  whose  daily  life  consists  in  the  honest 
fulfillment  of  the  allotted  task,  that  men  habitually  in  contact 
with  refined,  disciplined,  and  trained  minds,  in  touch  with  the 
best  that  is  known  and  thought  and  filled  with  the  ideals  which 
the  wisest  who  have  lived  before  them  have  held  up  to  the  ad 
miration  of  the  world,  should  live  by  moral  standards  lower  than 
those  of  the  street,  the  mart  of  trade,  or  the  polls,  is  an  error 
gross  and  palpable.  And  yet  it  is  not  altogether  inconceivable 
that  were  the  humanities  stricken  from  the  curriculum  of  our  col 
leges  and  learning  cultivated  solely  for  the  worldly  advancement 
and  prosperity  to  be  gained  by  it;  were  this  beloved  university 
of  ours  —  which  Heaven  forbid  —  to  degenerate  so  far  as  to 
train  mere  politicians,  mere  quacks,  and  mere  pettifoggers,  such 
imaginings  as  these  might  not  seem  to  us  so  wholly  grotesque. 
Religion  has  no  such  aid  and  abettor  as  the  disinterested  pur 
suit  of  learning.  Morality  has  no  closer  ally  than  a  liberal  educa 
tion.  Without  education  religion  shrinks  back  into  primitive 
superstition.  Without  education  morality  fades  like  a  dying  em 
ber  blown  into  momentary  glow  by  brute  terror  of  the  law. 

I  confess  that  I  am  deeply  concerned  at  the  increasingly  prac 
tical  bias  which  is  given  to  our  everyday  education,  and  the  in 
vasion  of  the  college  and  even  of  the  secondary  school  by  subjects 


296  FELIX  EMANUEL  SCHELLING 

into  which  an  alleged  or  actual  utility  enters  to  the  detriment  of 
their  liberalizing  power.  I  confess  that  I  view  with  mistrust  the 
enormous  emphasis  which  we  attach  to  facts  statistically  jug 
gled;  the  undue  weight  which  we  give  to  speculative  theories 
untested  by  competent  knowledge  of  past  speculative  thought; 
as  I  view  with  alarm  the  minuter  specialization  of  subject  mat 
ter  in  college  and  university,  when  intrusted,  as  it  sometimes  is, 
to  men  to  whom  the  humanities  in  any  sense  are  a  dim  recollec 
tion  of  the  secondary  school.  It  is  for  you,  my  younger  brothers 
of  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  to  recognize  some  of  these  things,  and  recog 
nizing  their  nature,  to  stand  firm  for  that  openness  of  spirit, 
that  quality  of  disinterestedness,  that  elevation  of  thought,  and 
that  unquenchable  faith  in  high  ideals  which  is  the  most  precious 
outcome  of  your  sojourn  with  the  humanities. 

I  respect  the  ingenious  application  of  scientific  principles  to 
matter  that  trains  our  engineers,  our  chemists,  and  our  phys 
icists  to  mechanical  skill  and  technical  precision.  I  admire  the 
nice  complexities  of  applied  science,  and  procedure  perfected  by 
experience  and  precedent,  which  we  call,  respectively,  the  pro 
fessions  of  medicine  and  of  law,  and  which  train  competent 
guardians  of  our  property,  our  rights,  and  our  lives.  I  honor  the 
patient  and  indefatigable  spirit  of  research  that  wins  for  men, 
inch  by  inch,  new  lands  in  the  territory  of  the  unknown.  And 
I  bow  before  that  abnegation  of  self  that  lives  for  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  men  and  offers  with  brotherly  hand  the  consolation 
and  the  stay  which  religion  alone  can  give.  But  I  do  maintain 
withal  that  it  is  in  the  untechnical  studies,  the  unprofessional 
studies,  be  their  content,  let  me  say  once  more,  what  it  may;  it 
is  in  those  studies  alone  which  are  pursued  without  the  possi 
bility  of  transmutation  into  terms  of  practical  utility  that  we 
can  hope  to  find  the  elements  which  draw  forth  the  undeveloped 
man  within,  which  set  forth  lofty  and  unselfish  ideals,  and  which, 
in  a  word,  do  really  educate,  elevate,  and  humanize. 

When  James  Russell  Lowell  defined  a  university  as  a  place 
in  which  nothing  useful  was  taught,  he  uttered  no  mere  idle 
paradox.  I  am  afraid  that  we  are  doing  a  great  deal  of  useful 
work  in  this  university,  work  which  has  its  place  here,  but  work 
which  should  not  be  permitted  to  usurp  all  places.  The  greatest 
need  in  the  education  of  to-day,  a  need  greater  than  short  cuts 


HUMANITIES,  GONE  AND  TO  COME  297 

to  the  professions,  training  for  city  councils  or  state  legislatures, 
preliminary  courses  to  speculative  philanthropy  or  air-ship 
building,  is  the  restoration  of  the  humanities  to  our  college 
courses  in  a  larger  proportion  than  has  been  theirs  for  many  a 
day.  Where  the  line  is  to  be  drawn  which  shall  divide  the  train 
ing  of  the  man  from  the  training  of  the  engineer,  the  lawyer,  or 
the  physician  is  a  matter  comparatively  unimportant.  That 
such  a  line  should  be  drawn  is  an  imperative  need  of  the  moment, 
a  need  which  temporizing  can  only  make  more  clamorous  in  its 
just  demand. 

Among  the  humanities  that  are  with  us  or  are  to  come,  let  us 
welcome  every  subject  that  can  enlarge  the  horizon  of  the  stu 
dent  and  give  him  truer,  saner,  and  more  liberal  views  of  man  and 
life.  It  is  not  the  topic  which  determines  these  qualities,  but  the 
spirit  in  which  the  subject  is  pursued,  a  spirit  which  demands  a 
rigorous  exclusion  from  its  purview  of  all  that  is  narrow  and 
material.  In  a  frank  recognition  of  the  liberalizing  influences 
of  the  study  of  science  and  of  the  close  relations  of  modern  lan 
guages,  history,  and  philosophical  speculation  to  the  develop 
ment  of  the  contemporary  man,  I  cannot  but  affirm  it  as  my 
conviction  that  the  languages  of  the  ancients,  their  art,  litera 
ture,  philosophy,  and  archaeology,  will  long  continue  the  most 
fruitful  of  the  humanities,  not  only  because  of  their  valuable 
content  and  their  incomparable  position  as  to  all  that  has  come 
after,  but  because  of  their  splendid  isolation  from  the  possi 
bility  of  measurement  and  appraisement  by  utilitarian  stand 
ards.  Depend  upon  it  that  the  sword  is  best  whetted  on  that 
which  it  is  destined  never  to  cut.  Depend  upon  it  that  the  true 
glory  of  the  humanities,  whether  gone,  present,  or  to  come,  — 
like  the  glory  of  art,  of  literature,  and  the  glory  of  religion  itself, 
—  is  the  immeasurability  of  all  these  priceless  things  by  ma 
terial  standards,  and  the  imperishability  of  their  spiritual  worth, 
significance,  and  potency. 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS 

BY   ALBERT   SHAW 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Virginia,  William  and  Mary  College,  in  Richmond, 

April  13,  1904. 

IN  1904  there  was  held  at  St.  Louis  a  great  exposition  whose 
object  it  was  to  exemplify  the  amazing  progress  that  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  foresaw  as  a  result  of  his  acquisition  of  the  trans-Mississippi 
country.  In  the  following  year  there  was  a  creditable  exposition 
in  Oregon  to  commemorate  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of 
Jefferson's  expedition  under  command  of  Lewis  and  Clark.  In 
1907  comes  the  celebration  of  the  noteworthy  completion  of 
three  hundred  years  of  English-speaking  men  in  the  Common 
wealth  of  Virginia. 

In  these  commemorations  of  the  opening  decade  of  our  twenti 
eth  century,  Mr.  Jefferson  stands  forth  as  in  many  respects  the 
most  conspicuous  figure.  A  multiplicity  of  speeches,  brochures, 
biographical  studies,  and  historical  reviews  of  the  Jeffersonian 
period  has  within  recent  years  attested  the  marked  revival  of  in 
terest  in  the  career  of  this  eminent  Virginian.  I  could  not  hope 
to  add  anything,  not  indeed  so  much  as  a  single  suggestion,  con 
cerning  Mr.  Jefferson's  personality  or  public  career  to  that 
which  has  become  the  common  stock  of  knowledge  in  Virginia, 
where  the  great  sons  of  the  Commonwealth  are  kept  in  memory 
by  accomplished  speakers  and  writers.  All  that  I  shall  venture 
to  do  is  to  attempt  some  reflections  upon  what  I  may  call  the 
carrying  power  and  the  vitality  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  political  opin 
ions  and  doctrines. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  agree  with  every  opinion  Mr.  Jefferson 
ever  expressed,  or  to  applaud  every  attitude  or  act  of  his  public 
career,  in  order  to  be  counted  among  those  who  admire  him 
sincerely  and  profoundly,  and  who  find  his  writings  a  marvellous 
repository  of  political  wisdom  and  knowledge.  His  was  a  very 
long  period  of  active  statesmanship  and  public  influence.  That 
period  reached  its  zenith  in  the  first  term  of  his  incumbency  of 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    299 

the  office  of  President,  about  a  hundred  years  ago.  He  entered 
the  Presidency  with  a  thoroughness  of  training  and  a  ripeness  of 
experience  beyond  that  of  any  other  man  who  has  ever  attained 
this  high  office.  As  might  have  been  expected,  his  first  inaugural 
address  was  one  of  great  dignity  and  elevation  of  sentiment,  —  a 
stately  utterance,  a  model  and  a  classic  in  form  and  in  breadth 
and  serenity  of  view.  He  had  been  called  to  guide  the  affairs  of 
what  he  described  as  "a  rising  nation,  spread  over  a  wide  and 
fruitful  land,  traversing  all  the  seas  with  the  rich  productions  of 
their  industry,  engaged  in  commerce  with  nations  who  feel 
power  and  forget  right,  advancing  rapidly  to  destinies  beyond 
the  reach  of  mortal  eye." 

It  was,  indeed,  a  wide  and  fruitful  land.  But  Mr.  Jefferson 
himself  was  ordained  by  Providence  to  make  it  vastly  wider,  and 
in  many  ways  to  enhance  its  fruitfulness.  Our  population  at  that 
time  was  only  a  little  more  than  five  millions,  and  our  domain 
was  bounded  by  the  Mississippi  River  on  the  west,  and  by  the 
European  colonies  of  Florida  and  Louisiana  on  the  south.  He 
lived  to  see  our  population  grow  to  about  twelve  millions,  with 
the  Florida  Purchase  consummated  and  with  every  reason  to  be 
lieve  that  in  due  time  the  joint  occupation  of  the  Oregon  country 
by  the  United  States  and  England  would  terminate  in  our  ac 
knowledged  control  of  the  region  traversed  by  Lewis  and  Clark 
all  the  way  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  But,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  Mr. 
Jefferson's  views  rather  than  his  achievements  that  belong  to 
my  theme. 

Though  of  a  philosophical  and  reflective  habit,  and  himself  a 
diligent  student  of  the  past  experience  of  men  grouped  in  politi 
cal  communities,  Mr.  Jefferson's  own  eyes  were  usually  turned 
forward  rather  than  backward.  His  was  an  eminently  practical 
mind;  and  he  used  history  chiefly  as  the  touchstone  by  which  to 
test  current  opinions  and  tendencies  for  the  sake  of  an  ever- 
better  future.  All  political  principles  and  theories,  all  the  history 
of  the  past,  all  the  implements  and  methods  of  statecraft,  were 
studied  by  Mr.  Jefferson  with  the  one  concrete  object  of  enabling 
him  and  his  colleagues  (to  quote  from  that  same  inaugural  ad 
dress),  "to  steer  with  safety  the  vessel  in  which  we  are  all  em 
barked  amidst  the  conflicting  elements  of  a  troubled  world." 

Now,  just  as  Mr.  Jefferson  himself  examined  the  doctrines  of 


300  ALBERT  SHAW 

the  English  and  French  philosophers,  humanitarians,  and  econ 
omists,  with  a  view  to  the  establishment  of  his  own  opinions,  so 
I  find  myself  at  present  disposed  to  consider  not  so  much  the 
problems  that  lay  before  our  countrymen  a  hundred  years  ago  as 
our  own  problems  of  to-day,  except  as  those  of  the  former  period 
may  have  some  bearing  upon  the  issues  that  confront  us  now  as 
we  have  fairly  crossed  the  threshold  of  a  new  century  and  are 
casting  about  us  for  wise  courses,  still  finding  ourselves  "amidst 
the  conflicting  elements  of  a  troubled  world."  And  I  have  asked 
myself,  What  valid,  trustworthy,  and  still  enduring  basis  have 
the  principles  of  Mr.  Jefferson  as  applied  to  our  own  present  and 
immediate  future? 

Have  we  outlived  his  generalizations?  Was  he,  to  a  large  ex 
tent,  superficial  and  specious?  Was  he  a  doctrinaire  in  a  sense 
that  should  now  cause  us  to  distrust  his  practical  conclusions? 
Was  he  sentimental  and  visionary?  Was  he  hasty  in  pronounc 
ing  radical  and  sweeping  verdicts?  Did  he  allow  his  love  of  glit 
tering  expressions  and  abstract  dicta  to  impair  his  judgment? 
Did  he  reason  to  permanent  conclusions  from  isolated  instances 
or  merely  transient  phenomena,  and  thus  violate  scientific 
methods? 

Political  philosophers  come  and  go.  Hah*  a  dozen  new  ones, 
who  were  the  vogue  ten  or  twenty,  or  even  five,  years  ago,  are 
now  confessedly  obsolete.  They  do  not  stand  the  test  of  time. 
Yet  there  must  be  some  principles  of  government,  of  national 
policy,  of  social  and  political  ethics,  approaching  nearly  enough  to 
essential  truth  and  justice  to  meet  the  fluctuations  of  at  least  one 
century,  and  to  hold  some  rightful  claim  to  popular  confidence 
and  allegiance.  Men  must  hold  by  some  opinions;  what,  then, 
shall  they  be? 

Many  things  in  outward  circumstances  have  changed  more 
profoundly  in  the  past  one  hundred  years  than  in  a  thousand 
years  preceding.  The  production  of  wealth,  for  example,  has 
been  greater  by  far  since  the  death  of  Mr.  Jefferson  than  were 
the  total  accumulations  of  the  world  through  all  the  ages  down 
to  that  date.  Moreover,  there  has  been  most  marvellous  develop 
ment  of  population;  and  every  one  feels  that  we  are  entering 
upon  new  and  unknown  periods  of  transition  at  an  ever-accelerat 
ing  pace.  What  landmarks  can  we  keep  in  view,  or  by  what 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    301 

charts  and  compasses  shall  we  be  guided  as  we  embark  on  mo 
mentous  new  voyages?  In  these  inquiries,  I  have  in  mind,  not  so 
much  the  world  at  large  as  the  people  of  the  United  States;  and  I 
have  particularly  in  mind  two  or  three  lines  of  questioning.  One 
of  these  has  to  do  with  our  national  position  and  policy,  as  re 
spects  other  nations  and  the  world  at  large.  Another,  with  some 
of  our  internal  problems  of  government  and  politics,  and  per 
haps  a  third,  with  the  economic  and  social  status  of  the  individ 
ual  citizen  —  the  outlook,  so  to  speak,  for  the  average  man 
under  fast-changing  methods  of  production  and  distribution. 
And  a  fourth  might  have  to  do  with  the  relation  of  the  state 
itself  to  industry  and  economic  society. 

Further,  in  alluding  to  some  of  these  present-day  problems,  I 
would  like  to  make  test,  incidentally,  at  least,  of  the  doctrines 
and  opinions  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  to  see  if  they  hold  good,  and 
if  Jefferson  is  still  entitled  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  prophet  and  a 
guide.  I  shall  not  try  to  use  any  rhetorical  art  whatsoever  to 
heighten  the  effect  of  my  own  conclusions  as  respects  the  essen 
tial  qualities  of  the  body  of  political  doctrine  taught  by  Mr. 
Jefferson;  and  I  shall  make  haste,  therefore,  to  anticipate  some 
more  detailed  avowals  by  declaring  in  advance,  and  in  general 
terms,  my  strong  belief  in  Mr.  Jefferson  as  an  enduring  prophet. 

I  find  myself  wondering  again  and  again  how  that  fine  and 
lucid  intelligence  of  his  could,  by  the  time  he  was  thirty  years  old, 
in  provincial  Virginia,  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago,  have  be 
come  so  perfectly  emancipated.  When  to-day  I  reread  his  utter 
ances,  the  one  thing  that  impresses  me  above  all  else  is  the  fresh 
ness,  the  modernity,  of  his  way  of  looking  at  everything.  The 
openness  and  the  freedom  of  his  mental  processes  seem  to  bring 
him  across  the  chasm  of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  to 
a  place  with  thinkers  like  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Huxley  at  their 
best  period.  Since  Jefferson's  time,  we  have  had  few  public  men 
of  large  vision.  At  least  these  later  statesmen,  if  endowed  by 
nature  with  capacity  to  formulate  principles,  have  not  enjoyed 
as  favorable  opportunities.  They  have  been  involved  in  con 
troversies  over  immediate  issues,  and  have  been  in  the  position 
of  men  in  the  thick  of  the  woods,  hindered  by  the  trees  from  see 
ing  the  forest.  Compared  with  Jefferson,  in  practical  statesman 
ship,  John  Bright  seems  a  limited  though  a  congenial  spirit;  and 


302  ALBERT  SHAW 

Mr.  Gladstone,  a  similarly  versatile  and  capacious  mind,  but 
with  prejudices  of  class  and  creed  that  yielded  only  painfully  and 
slowly  through  a  hah0  century  of  experience.  Our  own  Websters 
and  Calhouns  and  Clays  seem  merely  a  part  of  a  past  epoch. 
Jefferson's  thinking  seems  to  reach  to  the  things  of  to-day, 
while  those  men  of  the  forties  and  fifties  appear  almost  as  re 
mote  as  the  figures  of  Plutarch's  time.  Lincoln's  thought  had, 
doubtless,  much  of  the  quality  that  survives,  and,  among  our 
later  men,  I  think  you  will  some  day  give  a  larger  place  to 
Seward  than  either  North  or  South  has  yet  accorded  him.  But 
for  flexibility  of  mind,  and  for  perennial  freshness  of  doctrine  and 
statement,  it  seems  to  me  Jefferson  must  still  bear  the  palm. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  launching  of  a  new  and  pow 
erful  nation  has  not  been  a  frequent  occurrence  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  The  erection  of  a  sovereign  state  to  take  its  place  as 
a  member  of  the  family  of  nations  has  almost  invariably  been 
a  matter  of  sheer  force,  of  bloody  violence,  of  titanic  struggle, 
rather  than  one  of  a  calm  and  philosophic  shaping  of  political 
institutions.  Thus,  never  elsewhere  has  either  the  forming  of  a 
new  state  or  the  political  remaking  of  an  old  one  been  accom 
panied  by  any  such  magnificent  setting  forth  of  the  practical  and 
theoretical  principles  of  government,  of  politics,  of  jurisprudence, 
of  international  law,  and  of  foreign  and  domestic  statesmanship, 
as  that  which  attended  the  formative  period  in  the  United  States. 

During  this  memorable  period,  George  Washington  held  the 
first  place  as  a  man  of  action  and  of  noble  and  sagacious  leader 
ship,  while  in  all  deference  it  may  be  said  that  he  held  second 
place  as  a  man  of  reflection  and  as  the  exponent  of  distinctively 
American  opinion.  His  colleague  and  friend,  Thomas  Jefferson, 
held  a  place  second  to  Washington  only  as  a  leader  in  actual 
affairs,  and  a  place  unquestionably  the  very  first  as  a  formulator 
of  opinion  and  an  exponent  of  our  American  system  of  popular 
democratic  government.  And  all  this  I  say,  without  abatement 
of  one  particle  of  the  admiration  I  entertain  for  the  powerful 
statesmanship  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  for  the  learning  and  per 
suasive  logic  of  James  Madison,  for  the  wisdom  and  greatness  of 
John  Jay,  and  for  the  constructive  intellect  and  priceless  services 
of  John  Marshall.  How  many  others  there  were  in  that  noble 
company  of  Americans,  many  of  them  young  men,  who  were 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    303 

brought  to  great  elevation  of  view,  as  evinced  in  their  work  in 
the  Continental  Congress,  then  later  in  the  discussions  that  con 
trolled  the  framing  and  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  and  in  the 
executive,  legislative,  and  judicial  acts  and  decisions,  and  the 
diplomacy,  of  the  period  that  ended,  let  us  say,  with  the  death  of 
Thomas  Jefferson  and  John  Adams,  who  passed  away  on  the 
same  Fourth  of  July,  in  the  year  1826. 

Of  some  of  these  men  —  as  of  Washington,  and  perhaps  Ham 
ilton  —  it  must  be  said  that  they  were  "born  great."  Most  of 
them  had  "greatness  thrust  upon  them"  by  the  sheer  force  of 
circumstances  that  developed  their  best  capacities.  These  men 
were  compelled  to  study  the  position  of  their  young  republic, 
both  as  regards  its  domestic  structure,  and  also  as  related  to  the 
world  at  large,  in  a  period  when  the  struggles  and  convulsions  of 
Europe  were  stirring  men's  minds  and  causing  them  to  see  things 
in  new  lights,  with  renunciation  of  old  prejudices.  Thus  they 
were  lifted  above  the  commonplace.  It  was  impossible  to  go  on 
in  ruts.  Jefferson  and  Benjamin  Franklin  must,  I  think,  in  any 
case,  have  achieved  greatness  without  the  stimulus  of  exceptional 
circumstances,  through  the  inherent  power  of  minds  of  rare 
energy  and  of  still  more  rare  versatility  —  to  which,  in  both  cases, 
was  added  the  gift  of  abstract  and  philosophical  reasoning,  and, 
finally,  a  touch  of  that  something  we  call  genius  and  do  not  try 
to  explain. 

In  the  very  nature  of  things  a  new  English-speaking  common 
wealth,  emerging  in  that  particular  period,  must  have  formulated 
for  itself  some  doctrines  and  general  opinions.  The  circumstances 
were  of  a  well-balanced  sort  as  respects  what  one  may  call  the 
relative  exigencies  of  domestic  and  foreign  problems.  Thus  our 
statesmen  were  able  to  work  out  schemes,  both  of  doctrine  and 
of  practical  policy,  that  in  spite  of  vicissitudes  and  profound 
changes  of  the  nineteenth  century  have  had  momentum  enough 
to  project  themselves,  without  much  serious  deflection,  across 
the  line  of  a  new  century.  And  now,  if  I  mistake  not,  the  coun 
try  has  reached  a  juncture  where  once  more  the  relative  exigen 
cies  of  domestic  and  external  problems  not  only  permit  us  but 
also  compel  us  to  try  again  to  take  our  bearings  as  respects  un 
derlying  principles  and  national  attitudes  and  policies. 

To  the  wholesome  and  normal  mind  some  principles  and  creeds 


304,  ALBERT  SHAW 

are  necessary  —  if  for  no  other  reason  than  to  serve  as  a  working 
hypothesis.  And  it  is  eminently  true  in  the  conduct  of  public 
affairs,  that  for  wise  results  there  must  be  some  admitted  prin 
ciples  of  government  and  some  fixed  landmarks  of  policy.  Other 
wise,  disastrous  mistakes  will  be  made  and  recognized  only  too 
late.  The  word  "policy,"  as  applied  to  a  nation's  affairs,  though 
broad  enough  to  include  all  general  and  fixed  trends  of  action, 
may  well  be  restricted  to  external  relationships.  In  my  use  of  it 
I  have  in  mind  more  particularly  the  intentions  and  aspirations, 
as  well  as  the  actual  conduct,  of  a  nation,  in  its  dealings  with 
other  countries  and  its  plans  as  to  the  world  at  large. 

For  some  countries  the  problems  of  foreign  policy  are  so  del 
icate  and  difficult  that  they  cannot  very  well  be  discussed  openly. 
Thus  at  times  British,  German,  and  Russian  policy  must  be 
learned  by  inference  rather  than  by  any  frank  or  responsible 
avowal.  The  United  States  in  this  respect  has  occupied  a  favor 
able  and  fortunate  position,  and  we  have  usually  found  it  to  be 
both  safe  and  wise  to  discuss  freely  and  openly  the  principles 
having  to  do  with  our  relations  toward  other  countries.  During 
the  past  century  American  policy  has  had  its  pivot  in  what  we 
commonly  call  the  "Monroe  Doctrine,'*  and  what  the  Euro 
pean  nations  refer  to  as  "Monroeism."  Those  who  find  it  suffi 
cient,  in  discussing  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  to  recall  the  exact 
wording  of  a  particular  utterance  formulated  by  John  Quincy 
Adams,  as  Secretary  of  State  in  President  Monroe's  second  ad 
ministration,  fail  to  appreciate  the  underlying  fact.  This  precise 
utterance  did  not  make  our  American  policy,  but  was  simply  a 
timely  and  valuable  expression  of  a  policy  that  had  been  shaping 
itself  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  previous,  that  had  found  a  partial 

—  and,  in  so  far,  authoritative  —  expression  in  Washington's 
Farewell  Address. 

If  I  have  studied  aright  the  history  of  American  policy,  it  was 
Thomas  Jefferson,  as  Washington's  first  Secretary  of  State,  and 
as  our  foremost  exponent  of  national  doctrine  and  principle,  who 

—  incomparably  more  than  any  one  else  —  thought  out,  de 
veloped,  and  expressed  the  ideas  that  we  have  in  mind  when  we 
mention  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  It  was  he  whose  teachings  made 
this  doctrine  the  one  great  fixed  landmark  to  guide  us  in  our 
relations  with  the  world  at  large. 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    305 

As  the  Louisiana  Purchase  was  the  foremost  single  act  of  do 
mestic  statesmanship  in  our  national  history  during  the  last 
century,  so  the  evolution  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  the  one 
great  feature  of  our  statesmanship  as  it  dealt  with  external  affairs. 
It  was  an  achievement  of  such  overshadowing  greatness  that  in 
comparison  with  it  everything  else  falls  into  the  background. 

What,  in  its  fundamental  aspect  is  the  Monroe  Doctrine? 
Jefferson  saw  the  group  of  European  nations  engaged  in  almost 
incessant  warfare  with  one  another,  changing  boundaries  through 
conquest,  making  and  breaking  alliances,  struggling  painfully 
for  release  from  the  shackles  of  mediaeval  systems,  in  response 
to  new  ideas  of  popular  progress;  and  through  it  all  he  foresaw 
with  wonderful  clearness  the  gradual  evolution  of  a  better  order 
of  things  and  the  ultimate  establishment  of  a  peaceable,  modern 
concert  of  European  nations,  working  its  way  by  hard  experience 
out  of  the  old  military  balance  of  power.  He  anticipated  the 
breaking-up  of  the  Turkish  Empire  and  the  extension  of  the 
European  system  across  the  Mediterranean  into  Africa  and  be 
yond  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Caucasus  into  Western  Asia.  He 
had  no  misgivings  at  all  about  the  future  outworking  of  the  spirit 
of  human  liberty  and  of  democratic  and  industrial  progress  in 
those  blood-stained  regions  of  the  Old  World. 

But,  meanwhile,  he  conceived  of  a  new  American  world  based 
on  principles  of  equality  and  freedom,  and  beginning  its  political 
career  at  a  point  of  human  emancipation  which  it  might  well 
take  Europe  two  centuries  to  attain.  And  he  believed  that  this 
new  and  beneficent  system  in  the  Western  Hemisphere  should 
be  allowed  to  work  out  its  destiny  without  alliances  or  entangle 
ments  with  the  European  nations,  both  for  the  happiness  of  our 
own  people  and  also  for  the  subsequent  benefit  of  the  rest  of  man 
kind.  I  do  not  say  that  Jefferson  was  alone  in  entertaining  this 
great  conception,  yet  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  he  held 
it,  in  all  its  wide  and  varied  aspects,  with  far  more  clearness  of 
vision  than  any  other  man  —  just  as  I  know  that  he  expressed  it 
better  than  anybody  else  either  before  his  day  or  since,  down  to 
our  own  time. 

While  we  were  still  bounded  by  the  Mississippi  River  on  the 
west,  and  inclosed  on  three  sides  by  the  territorial  possessions  of 
European  powers,  —  with  all  of  Central  and  South  America,  and 


306  ALBERT  SHAW 

every  dot  of  the  West  Indies  held  as  crown  colonies  by  European 
sovereigns,  —  Jefferson  saw  more  vividly,  and  announced  with 
more  boldness  and  definiteness  than  any  public  man  at  Washing 
ton  has  ventured  to  assert  down  to  our  own  day,  the  necessary 
ultimate  dominance  of  the  United  States,  and  the  high  policy 
that  must  be  followed  in  pursuance  of  a  faith  in  our  manifest 
destiny.  He  believed  that  the  whole  Western  Hemisphere  must 
be  brought  out  from  under  European  control,  and  that  the  Ameri 
can  Republic  must  assume  the  leadership  in  the  development  of 
democratic  institutions  throughout  the  New  World. 
In  1805  he  declared:  — 

I  know  that  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  has  been  disapproved  by 
some,  from  a  candid  apprehension  that  the  enlargement  of  our  territory 
would  endanger  its  Union.  But  who  can  limit  the  extent  to  which  the 
federative  principle  may  operate  effectively?  The  larger  our  association, 
the  less  will  it  be  shaken  by  local  passions;  and,  in  any  view,  is  it  not 
better  that  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Mississippi  should  be  settled  by 
our  own  brethren  and  children  than  by  strangers  of  another  family? 
With  which  shall  we  be  most  likely  to  live  in  harmony  and  friendly 
intercourse? 

So  strongly  did  he  feel  the  necessity  of  a  period  of  isolation  in 
the  working  out  of  our  own  experiment,  that  he  went  so  far  at 
times  as  to  say  frankly  that  he  would  like  to  see  us  as  wholly  cut 
off  from  European  influence  as  China  itself  then  was.  This,  of 
course,  was  for  the  sake  of  that  distinctive  growth  of  an  Ameri 
can  nationality,  and  an  American  system,  for  which  he  believed 
a  period  of  seclusion  and  of  obscurity  might  be  valuable.  He 
never,  of  course,  forgot  the  ultimate  reaction  of  our  example 
upon  the  character  of  the  European  countries.  Thus,  a  little 
more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  he  wrote  to  an  American  states 
man:  — 

A  just  and  solid  republican  government  maintained  here  will  be  a 
standing  monument  and  example  for  the  aim  and  imitation  of  the  peo 
ple  of  other  countries. 

In  another  letter,  fifteen  years  earlier,  a  year  before  the  fram 
ing  of  the  Constitution,  Mr.  Jefferson  had  shown  the  breadth  of 
his  view  by  writing :  — 

Our  confederacy  must  be  viewed  as  the  nest  from  which  all  America, 
North  and  South,  is  to  be  peopled. 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    307 

He  was  fearful  at  that  time  lest  the  Spaniards  should  be  too 
weak  to  hold  South  America.  His  view  on  that  subject  is  too 
interesting  to  be  allowed  to  be  forgotten.  He  did  not  believe  that 
the  Spanish  colonies  were  capable  of  republican  self-govern 
ment,  and  he  thought  it  best  that  they  should  remain  quietly 
under  the  domination  of  Spain  until  our  own  population  should 
have  been  sufficiently  advanced  to  gain  the  territory  from  the 
Spaniards  "piece  by  piece,"  to  quote  his  own  phrase.  Thus,  even 
as  early  as  1786,  Jefferson  foresaw  the  inevitability  of  our  ex 
pansion,  until  we  had  acquired  the  Floridas,  the  Louisiana  coun 
try,  Texas,  and  the  great  Spanish  domain  of  California  and 
northern  Mexico. 

With  some  prescience,  seemingly,  of  the  infelicity  of  our  hav 
ing  to  wrest  such  territory  away  from  a  Spanish-speaking  Ameri 
can  republic,  such  as  Mexico  became,  he  had  hoped  that  Spain 
would  hold  on  until  we  could  emancipate  the  territory  piece  by 
piece  and  develop  it  into  happy,  self-governing  States  in  our  own 
Confederation.  In  these  days  of  the  railroad,  the  telegraph,  the 
fast  steamship,  and  the  daily  newspaper,  large  confederacies 
seem  easily  enough  possible.  But  we  must  not  underestimate  the 
boldness  of  Thomas  Jefferson  in  declaring,  a  hundred  and  twenty 
years  ago,  that  it  would  be  feasible  not  only  to  bring  the  whole  of 
North  America  under  our  one  federal  government,  but  even  pos 
sible  to  bring  in  South  America  also.  In  later  years,  when  prob 
lems  of  practical  statesmanship,  rather  than  the  bold  survey  of 
future  destiny  more  habitually  occupied  his  mind,  he  contented 
himself  with  strong  declarations  in  favor  of  the  acquisition  of 
Cuba  by  the  United  States,  and  of  the  annexation  of  Canada  at 
the  first  convenient  opportunity. 

Undoubtedly  it  was  his  opinion  —  indeed,  he  expressed  it 
often  in  private  letters  —  that  the  War  of  1812  would  result  in  our 
taking  and  keeping  Canada  as  compensation  for  our  many  and 
substantial  grievances  against  England.  This  was  not  due  to  any 
unfriendliness  toward  Great  Britain,  but  to  the  belief  that  it 
would  make  for  stable  equilibrium  all  around,  and  be  better  for 
everybody  concerned.  He  looked  forward  to  a  confederated 
North  America,  and  to  a  South  America  at  least  wholly  inde 
pendent  of  Europe  and  developing  under  our  friendly  auspices. 
He  wrote  to  Baron  von  Humboldt  in  1813  as  follows:  — 


308  ALBERT  SHAW 

The  European  nations  constitute  a  separate  division  of  the  globe, 
their  treaties  make  them  part  of  a  distinct  system;  they  have  a  set  of 
interests  of  their  own  in  which  it  is  our  business  never  to  engage  our 
selves.  America  has  a  hemisphere  to  itself.  It  must  have  its  separate 
system  of  interests,  which  must  not  be  subordinated  to  those  of  Europe. 
The  insulated  state  in  which  nature  has  placed  the  American  continent 
should  so  far  avail  it  that  no  spark  of  war  kindled  in  the  other  quarters 
of  the  globe  should  be  wafted  across  the  wide  oceans  which  separate  us 
from  them. 

To  another  foreign  correspondent  he  wrote  several  years 
later: — 

Nothing  is  so  important  as  that  America  shall  separate  herself  from 
the  systems  of  Europe  and  establish  one  of  her  own.  Our  circumstances, 
our  pursuits,  our  interests  are  distinct;  the  principles  of  our  policy 
should  be  so  also.  All  entanglements  with  that  quarter  of  the  globe 
should  be  avoided  if  we  mean  that  peace  and  justice  shall  be  the  polar 
stars  of  American  societies. 

Finally,  before  the  great  enunciation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
in  1823,  President  Monroe  wisely  consulted  the  venerable  states 
man  then  in  retirement  at  Monticello,  and  he  received  from  Mr. 
Jefferson  an  ever-memorable  letter,  from  which  I  may  quote  the 
following  sentences :  — 

Our  first  and  fundamental  maxim  should  be  never  to  entangle  our 
selves  in  the  broils  of  Europe.  Our  second,  never  to  suffer  Europe  to 
intermeddle  with  cis-Atlantic  affairs.  America,  North  and  South,  has 
a  set  of  interests  distinct  from  those  of  Europe  and  peculiarly  her  own. 
She  should,  therefore,  have  a  system  of  her  own,  separate  and  apart 
from  that  of  Europe. 

This,  all  things  considered,  is  perhaps  the  best  and  clearest 
statement,  as  it  is  the  boldest,  that  has  ever  been  made  of  the 
doctrine  so  repeatedly  set  forth  by  Jefferson,  though  nominally 
attributed,  on  account  of  one  official  utterance,  to  one  of  Jeffer 
son's  most  steadfast  disciples.  Fifteen  years  earlier  than  this,  in 
writing  to  Governor  Claiborne,  who  was  then  administering  the 
Louisiana  Territory  at  New  Orleans,  —  as  if  in  prophetic  fore 
cast  of  actual  applications  of  his  principles  of  policy, — Jefferson 
had  said,  respecting  Cuba  and  Mexico:  "We  consider  their  in 
terests  and  ours  as  the  same,  and  that  the  object  of  both  must  be 
to  exclude  all  European  influence  from  this  hemisphere."  Nearly 
sixty  years  later  we  applied  this  specific  principle  to  the  case  of 
Mexico,  and  expelled  a  French  army  and  an  Austrian  dynasty. 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    309 

Mr.  Seward,  one  of  the  greatest  successors  of  Jefferson,  and 
one  of  the  few  of  our  more  recent  statesmen  who  have  seemed  to 
comprehend  the  principles  of  American  policy,  had  the  honor  to 
enforce  our  views  in  the  case  of  Mexico.  The  reasons  would  have 
seemed  ample,  a  very  few  years  later,  either  before  or  after  the 
Virginius  incident,  for  the  enforcement  of  that  principle  in  the 
case  of  Cuba.  But  the  views  that  then  prevailed  were  rather 
those  of  legalists  and  diplomatists  than  those  of  masters  of  Ameri 
can  policy  in  the  large  sense.  And  so  it  remained  for  our  country, 
in  a  better  period,  and  in  the  fullness  of  time,  to  enforce  the  Jeffer- 
sonian  principles  of  policy  in  the  case  of  an  island  concerning 
which  Jefferson  in  1823  had  written:  — 

I  candidly  confess  that  I  have  ever  looked  on  Cuba  as  the  most  inter 
esting  addition  which  could  ever  be  made  to  our  system  of  States. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Mr.  Jefferson  was  always  con 
sciously  working  out  a  permanent  rather  than  a  temporary  line 
of  policy,  and  that  he  always  had  in  mind  the  rapid  extension  and 
great  growth  of  the  nation.  Thus,  writing  to  Baron  von  Hum- 
boldt  not  long  after  the  census  of  1810,  which  had  shown  our 
population  to  be  a  little  more  than  seven  millions,  he  declared :  — 

In  fifty  years  more  the  United  States  alone  will  contain  fifty  millions 
of  inhabitants,  and  fifty  years  are  soon  gone  over.  The  peace  of  1763  is 
within  that  period.  I  was  then  twenty  years  old,  and  of  course  remem 
ber  well  all  the  transactions  of  the  war  preceding  it,  and  you  will  live 
to  see  the  period  equally  ahead  of  us;  and  the  numbers  which  will  then 
be  spread  over  the  other  parts  of  the  American  hemisphere  catching 
long  before  that  the  principles  of  our  portion  of  it,  and  concurring  with 
us  in  the  maintenance  of  the  same  system. 

Humboldt  actually  lived  to  see  the  population  of  the  United 
States  alone  more  than  thirty  millions,  and  to  see  the  independ 
ent  South  American  states  living  under  constitutions  modelled 
after  ours,  and  concurring  in  the  main  in  our  views  of  a  distinc 
tive  American  international  policy. 

In  his  population  estimates,  Mr.  Jefferson  had  probably  cal 
culated  upon  our  union  with  Canada,  which  would  have  resulted 
in  the  much  more  rapid  development  of  that  region.  Writing  to 
James  Monroe,  in  18.01,  he  declared:  — 

However  our  present  interests  may  restrain  us  within  our  own  limits, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  look  forward  to  distant  times  when  our  rapid 


310  ALBERT  SHAW 

multiplication  will  expand  itself  beyond  those  limits  and  cover  the 
whole  northern,  if  not  the  southern,  continent,  with  a  people  speaking 
the  same  language,  governed  in  similar  forms,  and  by  similar  laws. 

What  other  man,  in  1801,  foresaw  so  clearly  the  great  growth 
of  the  English-speaking  races  and  the  widespread  establishment 
of  their  social  and  political  institutions?  Writing  to  Mr.  Madi 
son  on  the  Florida  question  in  1809,  Jefferson  declared: — • 

We  should  then  have  only  to  include  the  North  [meaning  Canada],  in 
our  confederacy,  and  we  should  have  such  an  empire  for  liberty  as  she 
has  never  surveyed  since  the  creation;  and  I  am  persuaded  no  constitu 
tion  was  ever  before  so  well  calculated  as  ours  for  extensive  empire  and 
self-government. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  pause  to  inquire  how  far  Jefferson's 
specific  forecasts  have  been  verified  in  the  course  of  a  hundred 
years;  but  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  he  was  dealing  consciously 
with  a  larger  future  than  a  single  century.  In  short,  the  states 
men  of  to-day,  for  large,  fresh,  and  sweeping  views  toward  the 
still  future  horizon,  should  look  through  the  lenses  provided  by 
Thomas  Jefferson.  It  remains  true,  as  he  pointed  out,  that  the 
policy  of  Europe  is  essentially  belligerent  and  aggressive,  while 
the  policy  of  America  is  essentially  pacific. 

It  remains  true,  moreover,  that  it  must  be  a  principal  aim  of 
our  policy  to  promote  the  development  of  the  Canadian  half  of 
North  America  in  harmony  with  that  of  our  own  half,  with  a 
view  to  ultimate  voluntary  political  union.  If  Jefferson  were 
alive,  he  would  still  hold  this  to  be  the  largest  unfulfilled  aspira 
tion  to  be  noted  in  the  items  of  a  future  public  policy. 

In  view  of  the  great  development  of  our  Pacific  seaboard,  it 
would  have  been  in  strict  keeping  with  all  of  Mr.  Jefferson's 
views  to  advocate  the  territorial  acquisition  of  the  Isthmian  strip 
that  connects  North  and  South  America  with  a  view  to  cutting 
a  ship  canal  on  our  own  soil.  Although  such  a  costly  project 
was  by  no  means  ripe  for  action  in  his  day,  Mr.  Jefferson  more 
than  once  expressed  lively  interest  in  the  possibility  of  an  inter- 
oceanic  canal.  And  let  it  be  said  with  the  utmost  emphasis, 
nothing  would  have  been  further  from  Mr.  Jefferson's  views 
than  the  placing  of  this  strictly  American  enterprise  under  the 
political  auspices  of  the  great  powers  of  Europe,  although  such 
a  plan  was  proposed  in  the  Bulwer-Clayton  Treaty  by  an  Amer- 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    311 

lean  Secretary  of  State  in  1850,  and  again  proposed  in  1900. 
Fortunately,  the  preponderant  sentiment  of  the  country  was 
aroused  to  a  perception  of  the  vital  bearings  of  the  question; 
and  we  may  rest  assured  that  Americans  will  henceforth  remem 
ber  Jefferson's  idea  that  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean 
Sea  are  essentially  American  waters,  and  that  an  American 
interoceanic  canal  must  come  under  the  full  control  of  the 
American  political  system. 

Jefferson  advocated  ample  coast  defences,  and  a  navy  ade 
quate  to  our  purposes  of  protection.  If  at  one  time  he  seemed  not 
to  favor  an  ambitious  naval  policy,  it  was  for  immediate  reasons 
which  he  ably  explained.  The  naval  predominance  of  England 
was  so  great  that  we  could  not  then  hope  to  rival  England  on  the 
sea,  and  an  inferior  navy  would  be  likely  to  be  sacrificed  in  a 
British  war.  John  Adams,  himself  the  stanch  advocate  of  a  vig 
orous  naval  policy,  declared  in  his  old  age  that  he  had  always 
regarded  Mr.  Jefferson  as  the  Father  of  the  American  Navy. 

A  study  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  views,  with  reference  to  their  appli 
cation  to  our  existing  conditions,  would  probably  lead  to  the  con 
clusion  that  he  would  now  favor  the  steady  development  of  our 
new  navy,  but  would  limit  the  standing  army  as  closely  as  pos 
sible.  As  early  as  1799  he  wrote  to  Elbridge  Gerry:  — 

I  am  for  relying  for  internal  defense  on  our  militia  solely,  till  actual 
invasion. 

But  several  years  later,  in  correspondence  with  some  one  else, 
he  made  this  very  notable  utterance :  — 

None  but  an  armed  nation  can  dispense  with  a  standing  army.  To 
keep  ours  armed  and  disciplined  is  therefore  at  all  times  important. 

And  in  his  last  annual  message,  in  1808,  as  his  second  Presi 
dential  term  was  ending,  he  declared  to  Congress :  — 

For  a  people  who  are  free,  and  who  mean  to  remain  so,  a  well-organ 
ized  and  armed  militia  is  their  best  security. 

You  will  remember  that  in  1813,  several  years  after  his  retire 
ment,  in  the  light  of  our  current  experiences  in  the  pending  war 
with  Great  Britain,  he  wrote  to  James  Monroe  that  "  We  must 
make  military  instruction  a  regular  part  of  collegiate  education; 
we  can  never  be  safe  until  this  is  done."  In  short,  Jefferson  be- 


312  ALBERT  SHAW 

lieved  in  a  citizen  soldiery,  to  be  composed,  if  necessary,  of  prac 
tically  all  the  young  men  in  the  country,  none  of  whom  should 
have  grown  up  without  becoming  familiar  with  the  use  of  weapons 
or  without  being  sufficiently  drilled  and  trained  to  admit  of  ready 
organization.  For  the  supply  of  officers  he  would  make  sure  that 
young  men  in  academies  and  collegiate  institutions  should  have 
some  especial  training  in  military  tactics  and  the  art  of  war. 

After  the  experience  of  a  hundred  years,  we  have  arrived  at  no 
wiser  view  than  this.  While  England  has  begun  to  talk  of  con 
scription  and  great  standing  armies,  after  the  continental  fashion, 
it  behooves  us  to  see  clearly  our  own  path  and  hold  fast  to  the 
principle  that  ours  must  be  an  armed  and  disciplined  nation, 
which  for  that  very  reason  can  dispense  with  a  large  standing 
army. 

The  question  must  naturally  arise,  what  relation  our  position 
and  policy  in  the  Philippines  bears  to  the  American  policy  of  iso 
lation  as  set  forth  by  Mr.  Jefferson.  I  shall  make  no  ingenious 
attempt  to  reconcile  one  thing  with  another.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  prize  consistency  above  all  else.  But  in  this  particular  in 
stance,  I  am  unable  to  find  any  denial,  or  even  any  weakening, 
of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  principle.  Mr.  Jefferson  and  his  col 
leagues  were  dealing  with  two  opposing  systems,  one  the  Euro 
pean,  the  other  the  American.  These  systems  had  relation  to 
such  parts  of  the  world  as  were  at  that  time  within  the  sphere 
of  ordinary  commercial  intercourse,  or  were  related  under  the 
principles  of  international  law,  recognizing  one  another  by  the 
exchange  of  ambassadors  or  other  agents.  At  that  time  there  was 
little  trading  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  the  most  important  perhaps 
being  the  regular  moving  of  the  Spanish  galleons  from  Mexico  to 
the  Philippines,  and  vice  versa.  China  and  Japan,  Korea  and 
Siam,  had  no  connection  or  intercourse  with  Europe  and  Amer 
ica.  Australia  had  not  been  colonized. 

A  wholly  new  situation  has  arisen  since  then.  A  new  com 
merce  has  come  into  existence,  and  the  far  East  has  been  aroused 
from  the  slumber  of  centuries.  With  our  great  Pacific  seaboard, 
we  must  needs  be  vitally  interested  in  the  new  commerce  and  the 
new  affairs  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  and  its  bordering  countries.  The 
European  system  remains,  and  it  must  continue  to  dominate 
Europe,  Africa,  and  the  western  part  of  Asia.  The  American 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    313 

system  also  remains,  and  so  long  as  we  are  true  to  the  policy  laid 
down  by  our  forefathers  it  will  continue  to  dominate  the  West 
ern  Hemisphere  of  North  and  South  America.  But  there  has 
been  rapidly  evolving  a  third  system  —  that  of  the  far  East,  or 
the  Pacific  —  in  which  China  and  Japan  have  a  great  part  to 
play,  and  in  which  we  also  have  interests,  as  have  several  of  the 
European  powers.  These  new  interests  of  ours  had  become  im 
portant  before  we  had  fairly  recognized  them.  A  war  in  asser 
tion  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  brought  us  temporarily  to  Manila, 
and  we  remained  at  Manila  for  reasons  that  had  no  reference  at 
all  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  but  rather  to  our  new  Pacific  inter 
ests  and  responsibilities. 

I  have  no  reason  to  mention  this  topic  except  by  way  of  these 
passing  suggestions.  The  Monroe  Doctrine  more  than  ever  is  the 
great  cardinal  principle  of  our  policy.  Our  chief  territorial  ex 
pansion  is  to  be  in  our  own  hemisphere,  where  conditions  favor 
the  settlement  of  English-speaking  men.  Our  position  in  the 
Philippines  is  exceptional,  and  is  perhaps  to  be  modified  in  due 
time  to  the  form  of  a  mere  friendly  protectorate.  Of  one  thing 
we  may  be  assured,  and  that  is  that  our  mission  there  is  destined 
to  be  one  of  beneficence  to  the  inhabitants  themselves.  I  must 
confess  myself  at  a  loss  to  understand  the  logic  of  those  who 
would  quote  the  Declaration  of  Independence  as  showing  con 
clusively  that  our  presence  in  the  Philippines  is  contrary  to  Jef 
ferson's  principles  of  democracy  and  self-government. 

Mr.  Jefferson  had  some  sense  of  historical  processes,  and  also 
some  clear  recognition  of  the  need  of  considering  the  element  of 
time.  He  pointed  out  with  frequency  that  circumstances  had 
brought  our  people  in  the  American  colonies  to  a  position  where, 
beyond  any  other  people  of  any  period,  we  were  fitted  to  enter 
upon  the  experiment  of  a  democratic  republican  state.  Our  col 
onies  had  been  growing  for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half,  and 
had  been  evorving  the  American  citizen  and  the  American  self- 
governing  community.  Until  these  two  developments  had  taken 
place  there  could  have  been  no  successful  American  republic. 
Even  in  1774  and  1775  Jefferson's  views  of  the  inherent  rights  of 
men,  as  respects  self-government,  had  to  do  not  with  the  higher 
attributes  of  national  or  imperial  sovereignty,  but  with  the  prac 
tical,  every-day  rights  of  communities  to  order  their  own  local 


314  ALBERT  SHAW 

affairs  and  to  take  part  in  imposing  the  taxes  that  they  were 
themselves  to  pay.  It  was  the  denial  of  these  ordinary  rights  of 
local,  concrete  self-government  to  the  American  colonies  that  led 
them  to  the  verge  of  a  revolution  that  otherwise  would  not  have 
been  defensible.  In  other  words,  the  American  Revolution  was 
not,  either  in  Jefferson's  mind,  or  in  that  of  any  other  leader, 
founded  upon  abstract  conceptions  of  the  rights  of  individual 
men,  but  rather  upon  practical  grievances. 

The  established  order  of  the  world  required  the  exercise  by 
some  accountable  government  of  the  responsibilities  of  sover 
eignty  at  Manila.  In  that  exercise  the  United  States  became  the 
legal  successor  of  Spain.  It  became  incumbent  upon  us,  however, 
in  regard  to  the  people  themselves,  to  assert  as  rapidly  as  possi 
ble  our  own  views  of  the  value  of  individual  citizenship  and  of 
self-government  in  communities,  as  a  foundation  for  the  larger 
institutions  of  the  province,  the  state,  or  the  nation. 

Mr.  Jefferson's  letters  to  James  Madison,  Thomas  McKeen, 
Governor  Claiborne,  and  various  others,  about  a  hundred  years 
ago,  relating  to  the  gradual  evolution  of  government  in  the  pur 
chased  Louisiana  Territory,  disclose  a  practical  statesmanship 
that  makes  it  clear,  even  down  to  the  minute  details,  how  Jeffer 
son  would  have  approached  the  task  of  initiating  and  developing 
a  government  for  the  Philippine  Archipelago.  And  I  may  add 
that  I  do  not  see  any  appreciable  difference  of  philosophy  or 
principle  between  the  Jeffersonian  views  and  those  which  Gov 
ernors  Taft  and  Wright  clearly  expressed,  and  which  were  sup 
ported  at  Washington  by  Presidents  McKinley  and  Roosevelt, 
and  by  Mr.  Root  as  Secretary  of  War. 

We  do  not  show  our  belief  in  democracy  at  home  by  forcing 
the  ballot  into  the  hands  of  school  children,  but  rather  by  our 
definite  purpose  so  to  train  the  school  children  that  in  due  time 
they  may  come  into  a  valuable  heritage  of  citizenship.  In  like 
manner  we  shall  fulfill  every  duty  and  observe  every  principle  of 
democracy  in  the  Philippines  if  we  introduce  popular  and  repre 
sentative  institutions  just  as  rapidly  as  may  be  consistent  with 
the  maintenance  of  order  and  the  enforcement  of  justice  be 
tween  man  and  man. 

It  is  not  impossible,  furthermore,  that  our  experience  in  the 
Philippines  and  elsewhere  may  help  us  to  understand  better  the 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    315 

evolutionary  character  of  some  of  our  problems  nearer  home. 
We  have  at  times  found  the  difficulties  confronting  our  demo 
cratic  institutions  to  be  so  disheartening  that  we  have  allowed 
the  pessimists  to  raise  their  insidious  doubts  as  to  the  funda 
mental  value  of  democracy  and  as  to  the  future  of  our  system. 
Here,  again,  I  do  not  know  any  wiser  teacher  to  follow  than 
Mr.  Jefferson,  nor  any  better  dictum  than  that  the  ultimate  cure 
for  the  ills  of  democracy  is  to  be  found  in  democracy  itself. 

In  Jefferson's  time  it  required  great  faith  and  clear  insight  to 
hold  in  an  unqualified  manner  to  the  novel  doctrine  of  the  right- 
mindedness,  capacity,  and  wisdom  of  the  plain  people,  and  to  the 
view  that  government  should  rest  on  the  broadest  possible  basis. 
Rousseau  and  other  French  writers,  it  is  true,  had  promulgated 
such  ideas.  But  they  argued  in  the  sphere  of  abstract  discussion, 
and  not  at  all  in  that  of  practical  politics.  Such  views  in  England 
were  of  slow  and  cautious  growth,  and  even  to  our  own  day  it 
is  the  taxpayer  —  rather  than  the  man  —  who  casts  a  British 
ballot,  while  a  single  proprietor  may  vote  in  as  many  different 
places  as  he  owns  property.  The  practical  doctrine  of  democracy, 
that  is  to  say,  of  the  plain  people  as  the  depository  of  political 
power,  the  doctrine  so  firmly  held  in  a  later  period  by  Abraham 
Lincoln,  was,  above  all,  the  Jeffersonian  doctrine.  Of  all  the  men 
who  had  lived  in  the  world  up  to  his  time,  he  expounded  that 
idea  most  influentially.  It  was  his  leadership  of  a  school  of 
American  politics  and  statecraft,  more  than  anything  else,  that 
gave  firm  establishment  to  the  broad  democratic  experiment  in 
this  country.  "The  only  orthodox  object,"  he  declared,  "of  the 
institution  of  government,  is  to  secure  the  greatest  degree  of  hap 
piness  possible  to  the  general  mass  of  those  associated  under  it." 

In  his  Notes  on  Virginia,  written  in  1782,  his  observations 
on  government  were  in  a  vein  well  indicated  by  the  following 
quotations :  — 

Every  government  degenerates  when  trusted  to  the  rulers  of  the 
people  alone.  The  people  themselves,  therefore,  are  its  only  safe  deposi 
tories.  To  render  even  them  safe,  their  minds  must  be  improved  to  a 
certain  degree. 

On  the  same  page  he  declared :  — 

The  influence  over  government  must  be  shared  among  all  the  people. 
If  every  individual  which  composes  their  mass  participates  in  the  ulti- 


316  ALBERT  SHAW 

mate  authority,  the  government  will  be  safe:  because  the  corrupting 
the  whole  mass  will  exceed  any  private  resources  of  wealth;  and  public 
ones  cannot  be  provided  but  by  levies  on  the  people.  In  this  case  every 
man  would  have  to  pay  his  own  price.  The  government  of  Great  Britain 
has  been  corrupted  because  but  one  man  in  ten  has  a  right  to  vote  for 
members  of  Parliament.  The  sellers  of  the  government,  therefore,  get 
nine  tenths  of  their  price  clear. 

For  a  period  of  more  than  fifty  years,  seemingly  without  a 
moment's  misgiving,  Jefferson  proclaimed  this  political  gospel 
of  popular  self-government.  Many  of  the  half-hearted  repub 
licans  of  his  time  favored  some  vestiges  of  hereditary  or  aristo 
cratic  or  exclusive  institutions.  Jefferson  never  compromised 
with  any  of  these  opinions.  Early  in  his  career  he  wrote  to  Gen 
eral  Washington,  "Experience  has  shown  that  the  hereditary 
branches  of  modern  government  are  the  patrons  of  privilege  and 
prerogative."  Since  he  wrote  those  words,  the  world  has  had  a 
further  experience  of  such  an  hereditary  institution  as  the  Brit 
ish  House  of  Lords,  through  an  added  century  and  a  quarter;  and 
Mr.  Jefferson's  views  remain  so  sound  and  judicious  that  they 
might  have  been  written  yesterday.  "The  true  foundation  of  re 
publican  government,"  he  wrote  at  a  later  period,  "is  the  equal 
right  of  every  citizen  in  his  person  and  property,  and  in  their 
management." 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  idea  of  an  unrestricted  suf 
frage  was  a  very  novel  one  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  What  Mr.  Jefferson's  views  had  always  been  he  made 
clear  in  a  letter  to  a  citizen  of  Virginia  which  he  wrote  in  1800. 
He  explained  that  the  new  constitution  of  Virginia  had  been 
formed  when  he  was  absent  attending  a  session  of  Congress;  and 
then  he  added,  "Had  I  been  here  [in  Virginia],  I  should  probably 
have  proposed  a  general  suffrage  because  my  opinion  has  al 
ways  been  in  favor  of  it."  In  notes  and  proposals  for  Virginia 
constitutions  at  several  earlier  periods,  Mr.  Jefferson  had  not 
wholly  ignored  the  prevailing  sentiment  in  favor  of  a  property 
qualification.  But  he  had  practically  nullified  such  a  limitation 
by  admitting  any  man  who  was  liable  to  militia  duty.  I  must 
not  dwell  tediously  upon  this  point,  although  to  my  mind  it  has 
a  significance  not  merely  historical  or  academic,  but  practical  in 
a  concrete  and  immediate  sense.  Mr.  Jefferson's  arguments  for 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    317 

a  large  electorate  were  many-sided,  and  they  were  to  my  mind  as  a 
whole  unanswerable.  But  it  would  be  highly  unjust  to  his  doc 
trine  of  the  suffrage  to  say  that  he  proclaimed  the  efficacy  of  uni 
versal  suffrage,  at  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances,  as  sure 
to  work  out  good  results. 

As  a  general  maxim  he  was  ever  proclaiming  the  inherent  right, 
and  also  the  advantage,  of  self-government.  But  he  was  a  states 
man,  and  he  recognized  facts  in  any  given  situation.  And  so  his 
maxims  about  self-government  presupposed  a  certain  degree  of 
preparation  and  fitness.  Thus,  after  he  had  purchased  Louisiana 
from  France,  he  did  not  for  a  moment  allow  his  well-known  phi 
losophy  of  the  right  of  self-government  to  obscure  his  practical 
judgment  as  to  the  immediate  work  in  hand.  In  December,  1803, 
he  wrote  to  DeWitt  Clinton  as  follows :  — 

Although  it  is  acknowledged  that  our  new  fellow-citizens  in  Louisiana 
are  as  yet  as  incapable  of  self-government  as  children,  yet  some  in  Con 
gress  cannot  bring  themselves  to  suspend  its  principles  for  a  single 
moment.  The  temporary  or  territorial  government  of  that  country, 
therefore,  will  encounter  great  difficulty. 

Two  or  three  years  before  that,  in  a  letter  to  John  Breckin- 
ridge,  he  pointed  out  a  radical  difference  between  our  American 
people  and  the  people  of  France,  in  that,  while  our  countrymen 
are  impressed  from  their  cradle  with  the  sacredness  of  the  law  of 
majority  rule,  the  people  of  France,  on  the  other  hand,  to  quote 
his  exact  words,  "have  never  been  in  the  habit  of  self-govern 
ment,  and  are  not  yet  in  the  habit  of  acknowledging  that  fun 
damental  law  of  nature  by  which  alone  self-government  can  be 
exercised  by  a  society  —  I  mean  the  lex  majoris  partis."  Mr.  Jef 
ferson,  of  course,  had  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  the  applicability 
in  due  time  of  the  principles  of  self-government  in  Louisiana 
on  the  one  hand  and  in  France  on  the  other.  He  did  not  waive 
his  ideal,  but  merely  recognized  the  necessity  of  preliminary 
processes. 

In  his  later  years  he  came  more  and  more  to  point  out  the  need 
of  character  and  intelligence  in  the  individual  citizen.  Thus,  in 
commenting  in  a  letter  to  a  foreign  correspondent  in  1814,  on  a 
new  constitution  that  had  been  drawn  up  for  Spain,  he  wrote:  — 

There  is  one  provision  which  will  immortalize  its  inventors.  It  is  that 
which  after  a  certain  epoch  disfranchises  every  citizen  who  cannot  read 


318  ALBERT  SHAW 

and  write.  This  is  new,  and  is  the  fruitful  germ  of  the  improvement  of 
everything  good,  and  the  correction  of  everything  imperfect  in  the  pres 
ent  constitution.  This  will  give  you  an  enlightened  people  and  an 
energetic  public  opinion. 

And  I  might  make  other  citations,  showing  an  acceptance  by 
Mr.  Jefferson  of  the  plan  of  an  educational  restriction.  In  this 
there  was  nothing  inconsistent  with  his  previous  arguments  in 
favor  of  a  wide  extension  of  the  franchise.  The  system  against 
which  he  had  been  fighting  was  one  which  tended  toward  the  per 
petuation  of  privileged  classes  in  the  community.  The  educa 
tional  qualification,  as  he  favored  it,  had  no  such  tendency.  Its 
object  was  not  to  make  permanent  exclusion  of  the  masses  from 
an  equal  part  in  the  work  and  privilege  of  government,  but 
rather  to  provide  an  added  incentive  to  diligence  and  effort  on 
the  part  of  every  young  man  to  fit  himself  to  meet  the  tests. 

There  has  been  a  period  in  our  recent  history  during  which 
more  honor  has  been  paid  to  Jefferson's  general  maxims  than  to 
his  practical  statesmanship.  It  was  precisely  because  he  believed 
so  deeply  in  the  people  and  in  their  essential  equality  of  rights 
and  of  legal  status,  that  he  attached  so  much  importance  to  the 
work  of  making  them  fit  to  be  entrusted  with  the  exercise  of  their 
natural  rights  as  members  of  the  political  community.  Thus 
Jefferson  would  have  said  —  if  I  have  any  understanding  of  the 
principles  of  his  statesmanship  —  that  it  was  the  great  business 
of  the  people  of  America,  in  the  critical  period  after  the  year 
1865,  not  to  confer  the  franchise  indiscriminately  upon  all  com 
ers,  but  rather  to  seek  by  every  means  and  by  every  sacrifice  to 
qualify  all  comers  —  and  especially  their  children  —  for  the 
future  exercise  of  the  franchise  in  an  intelligent  and  responsible 
manner. 

I  do  not  think,  then,  that  we  have  paid  the  highest  honor  to 
Jeffersonian  principles  in  the  North  by  admitting  to  the  franchise 
hundreds  of  thousands,  if  not  millions,  of  foreigners  unable  to 
speak  the  English  language,  densely  ignorant  of  our  forms  of 
government,  and  to  a  large  extent  unable  to  read  even  the  Lat- 
inic  dialects  or  the  Slavonic  jargons  of  the  regions  from  which 
they  have  come.  It  is  not  strange,  under  such  circumstances, 
that  the  government  of  our  great  cities  has  been  corrupt  and  in 
efficient.  The  conditions  of  immigration  in  Jefferson's  time  were 


JEFFERSON'S  DOCTRINES   UNDER   NEW   TESTS    319 

so  different  that,  while  he  made  many  observations  on  the  sub 
ject  that  still  possess  value,  there  is  not  much  in  his  writings  of 
direct  application  to  our  recent  and  present  experiences  on  that 
score.  It  may  be  clearly  inferred,  however,  that  Mr.  Jefferson 
would  have  favored  some  measure  to  restrict  the  coming  of  un 
desirable  immigrants  in  excessive  numbers;  and  it  is  even  more 
fairly  to  be  inferred  that  he  would  have  extended  the  franchise 
to  such  immigrants  only  upon  evidence  in  each  individual  case 
of  the  possession  of  proper  knowledge  and  capacity  to  take  part 
in  the  government  of  American  communities. 

With  respect  to  pending  franchise  questions  in  the  Southern 
States,  I  have  no  word  of  a  controversial  nature  to  utter.  An 
electorate  once  broadened  to  the  utmost  possible  limits  is  a  diffi 
cult  thing  to  contract.  The  ultimate  aim  of  statesmanship,  doubt 
less,  should  be  the  broadening  of  the  base  of  popular  government. 
But  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  gain  in  a  hastening  of  the  process. 

After  all,  Mr.  Jefferson's  greatest  contribution  to  the  system 
of  democracy  as  applied  in  practice  was  his  doctrine  of  the  rela 
tion  of  the  government  to  education.  He  believed  that  the  com 
munity  as  a  whole  should  confer  upon  every  child  the  opportun 
ity  to  acquire  a  common  education,  and  such  practical  knowledge 
as  would  best  fit  it  for  its  place  in  the  industrial  and  political 
community.  To  his  mind  this  was  the  best  way  to  meet  the 
inequalities  of  wealth  and  condition  that  otherwise  would  dis 
turb  the  equilibrium  of  a  democratic  state.  If  he  had  lived  to 
our  day,  and  had  found  large  elements  of  population  unqualified 
to  exercise  the  electoral  franchise,  he  would  doubtless  have 
advised  such  groups  or  factors  that  their  true  interests  lay  in 
other  directions  than  politics  and  government.  But  with  equal 
emphasis  he  would  have  urged  upon  the  community  at  large  the 
still  more  important  fact  that  there  must  be  extraordinary  effort 
used  to  elevate  every  part  of  the  citizenship  of  the  country. 

All  classes,  races,  and  nationalities  must  inevitably  suffer 
some  harm  and  loss  through  the  degradation  of  any  single  ele 
ment  or  factor  of  the  population;  and  on  the  other  hand,  each 
element  of  the  community  must  experience  some  distinct  gain 
as  a  result  of  every  effort  made  to  improve  the  intelligence  and 
general  condition  of  any  other  element  or  factor.  Happily,  there 
are  not  wanting  the  signs  that  the  country  is  coming  to  an  under- 


320  ALBERT  SHAW 

standing  of  this  fact.  The  most  eager  pupils  of  our  public  schools 
in  New  York,  Chicago,  and  many  other  Northern  cities  are  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  children  from  the  homes  of  parents 
who  do  not  speak  the  English  language.  The  lives  of  American 
statesmen  and  the  principles  of  American  government  form  the 
themes  and  topics  that  more  than  all  others  attract  and  inspire 
those  sons  of  Italian,  Russian-Polish,  and  Hungarian  parents  in 
the  tenement  quarters  of  New  York  and  Chicago,  as  they  throng 
the  free  circulating  libraries  for  books,  and  as  they  meet  in  their 
boys'  clubs  and  debating  societies.  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  as 
to  the  useful  future  of  these  boys  as  American  voters,  although  I 
have  had  many  misgivings  as  to  the  propriety  of  enfranchising 
their  fathers. 

There  was  danger,  a  few  years  ago,  lest  these  schools  might 
give  to  the  children  of  hard-working  though  ignorant  immigrants 
just  enough  smattering  of  book  knowledge,  and  just  enough  con 
tact  with  people  of  better  economic  and  social  condition  than 
their  parents,  to  spoil  them  for  the  places  they  ought  to  fill.  Care 
ful  investigation  twelve  or  fifteen  years  ago  convinced  me  that 
along  with  the  immeasurable  good  our  public  schools  were 
accomplishing,  they  were  also  doing  some  serious,  though  inci 
dental  harm.  They  were  detaching  the  sons  of  immigrants  from 
manual  pursuits,  while  not  helping  them  to  anything  better. 
But  the  schools  are  now  adapting  themselves  to  the  new  condi 
tions  they  have  to  meet,  and  they  are  everywhere  giving  empha 
sis  to  the  idea  of  the  great  dignity  and  value  of  labor,  while  more 
and  more  they  are  combining  manual  training  and  the  teaching 
of  practical  arts  with  mental  and  moral  discipline,  and  with 
instruction  in  language,  numbers,  and  geography,  in  drawing, 
and  in  the  elements  of  science.  Mr.  Jefferson's  broad  schemes  of 
education  were  scientific  enough  and  flexible  enough  to  admit  all 
such  later  differentiations  as  the  kindergarten  and  the  practical 
trade  school,  as  well  as  the  older  grammar  school  and  the  uni 
versity.  To  Mr.  Cabell  in  1820  he  wrote:  — 

Promote  in  every  order  of  men  the  degree  of  instruction  propor 
tioned  to  their  condition  and  to  their  views  in  life. 

Upon  nothing  was  his  heart  more  set  than  upon  the  systematic 
ordering  of  education,  so  that  its  benefits  might  be  thoroughly 


JEFFERSON'S   DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    321 

distributed.  Circumstances  have  made  it  possible  to  carry  out 
his  views  of  a  State  system  more  perfectly  perhaps  in  such  North 
western  Commonwealths  as  Michigan  and  Wisconsin  than  any 
where  else  in  this  country.  And  where  such  systems  exist  at 
their  best,  it  is  wonderful  to  note  their  potency  in  the  assimila 
tion  of  the  new  and  seemingly  unpromising  relays  of  immigrants 
that  have  come  in  recent  years  from  Eastern  and  Southern 
Europe. 

The  South  has  responded  splendidly  of  late,  at  great  sacrifice, 
to  the  demand  for  schools ;  and  I  am  confident  that  there  will  be 
no  relaxation  of  effort.  Nevertheless  there  cannot  be  too  frequent 
a  re-reading  of  the  views  of  Mr.  Jefferson  upon  the  importance 
of  education,  and  upon  its  fundamental  place  in  a  democracy. 

His  views  of  the  relation  of  education  to  the  state  were  adopted 
early  in  his  career,  and  were  propounded  with  his  very  latest 
breath.  I  deem  it  remarkable  that  he  should  have  declared  in  a 
letter  to  Madison  as  early  as  1787  that  the  task  and  function  of 
giving  "information  to  the  people  is  the  most  certain,  and  the 
most  legitimate  engine  of  the  government."  Even  in  our  own 
day  it  seems  a  bold  and  advanced  idea  to  declare,  without  any 
reserve  or  qualification,  that  education  is  the  first  duty  and  chief 
function  of  government.  The  whole  civilized  world  is  only  now 
beginning  cautiously  to  recast  itself  upon  a  glimmering  concep 
tion  of  the  truth  of  that  idea.  Mr.  Jefferson  stated  it  again  in 
his  first  inaugural  message.  In  1810  he  wrote  to  John  Tyler:  — 

I  have  two  great  measures  at  heart,  without  which  no  republic  can 
maintain  itself  in  strength.  1.  That  of  general  education,  to  enable 
every  man  to  judge  for  himself  what  will  secure  or  endanger  his  freedom. 
2.  To  divide  every  county  into  hundreds,  of  such  size  that  all  the  chil 
dren  of  each  will  be  within  reach  of  a  central  school  in  it. 

In  later  writings  he  advocated  a  special  tax  for  the  creation 
and  maintenance  of  his  system  of  schools  graded  from  the  pri 
mary  classes  to  the  university.  His  vindication  of  the  duty  of 
the  community  to  draw  by  taxation  upon  the  resources  of  the 
rich  to  pay  for  the  schooling  of  the  poor  was  so  complete  that 
nobody  has  ever  been  able  to  improve  upon  it. 

And  this  doctrine  of  his,  in  its  various  implications,  goes  to  the 
heart  of  the  new  social  and  industrial  conditions  we  see  about  us 
in  this  twentieth  century.  The  Jeffersonian  principle  is  that  the 


322  ALBERT  SHAW 

supreme  and  imperative  duty  of  the  state  is  the  training  of  the 
people  to  be  good  citizens  and  useful  and  capable  members  of 
society;  and  again  and  again  is  it  set  forth  in  the  utterances  of 
Mr.  Jefferson  that  the  safety  and  well-being  of  the  state  lie  along 
this  path  of  its  duty  and  its  burden. 

We  have  emerged  with  startling  suddenness  upon  a  period  of 
undreamt-of  industrial  combinations  and  prodigious  aggrega 
tions  of  productive  capital.  There  are  moments  when  it  seems 
as  if  the  concentrated  power  of  the  new  industrial  society  is 
becoming  so  great  that  it  must  subordinate  to  its  purposes  the 
organs  and  agencies  of  the  political  society.  In  many  particular 
instances,  temporarily  at  least,  such  subordination  has  been  too 
visible  to  be  denied.  The  only  remedy  lies  in  the  training  of  the 
individual  citizen.  Industrial  combinations  will  work  evil,  or 
they  will  work  good,  according  as  the  community  itself  is  pre 
pared  to  shape  them  to  the  common  advantage. 

It  is  not  true  that  the  man  is  diminishing  in  importance  as 
compared  with  the  dollar.  Fortunately,  just  the  opposite  is 
demonstrably  the  case.  The  new  industrial  combinations  rest 
even  more  necessarily  upon  the  cooperation  of  talent  and  skill 
than  upon  the  dead  weight  of  united  capital  alone.  There  never 
was  a  time  when  it  so  much  behooved  the  young  man  to  invest 
in  himself,  and  when  the  relative  value  of  personal  training  and 
acquired  aptitude  was  so  great  in  comparison  with  that  of  accu 
mulated  capital. 

The  ultimate  goal  in  a  democracy  is  not  strife  and  discord, 
but  political  harmony  and  concord;  and  it  is  similarly  true  that 
in  the  economic  life  of  the  community  the  better  hopes  reach  far 
beyond  the  wastefulness  and  strife  of  the  old  competitive  sys 
tem,  and  demand  the  substitution  for  it  of  cooperative  methods 
and  scientific  organization.  We  are  certainly  entering  upon  a 
period  of  unified  effort,  from  which  there  can  be  no  return  to  the 
competitive  system  as  it  has  existed  heretofore. 

And  respecting  this  new  and  close  organization  of  industry, 
several  methods  of  future  control  are  readily  conceivable.  One 
method  is  that  of  control  by  individuals,  or  by  syndicates  com 
posed  of  comparatively  few  men  whose  fortunes  can  be  told  in 
hundreds  or  thousands  of  millions.  A  second  method  is  that  of 
the  radical  enlargement  of  the  functions  of  the  political  com- 


JEFFERSON'S   DOCTRINES   UNDER   NEW  TESTS     323 

munity,  so  that  the  people  themselves,  organized  as  the  state, 
may  assume  control,  one  after  another,  of  the  great  businesses 
and  industries  of  the  country.  A  third  method  is  that  of  the 
gradual  distribution  of  the  shares  of  stock  of  industrial  corpora 
tions  among  the  workers  themselves  and  the  people  at  large, 
until  in  one  industry  after  another  there  shall  have  come  into 
being  something  like  a  true  cooperative  system  managed  on 
public  representative  principles  quite  analogous  to  the  carrying 
on  of  our  political  institutions.  Mr.  Jefferson  declared  himself 
clearly  and  strongly  against  any  arbitrary  limitation  of  individ 
ual  wealth.  He  was  willing  to  have  governmental  experiments 
tried,  and  was  not,  as  many  people  suppose,  the  apostle  of  the 
unqualified  doctrine  that  government  is  a  necessary  evil,  that 
the  best  government  is  the  one  that  governs  least,  and  in  any 
case  the  functions  of  government  should  be  negative  rather  than 
positive.  The  tendency  of  his  teaching  was,  indeed,  toward  as 
little  interference  in  industrial  affairs  on  the  part  of  government 
as  circumstances  would  permit.  This,  however,  was  always  sub 
ject  in  his  teaching  to  the  broad  principle  that  the  object  of 
government  is  to  promote  the  well-being  and  happiness  of  the 
greater  number,  and  that  its  practical  functions  may  therefore 
be  varied  from  time  to  time  to  meet  new  conditions. 

Thus  all  the  new  functions  of  municipal  government,  in  a 
period  when  the  majority  are  coming  to  live  under  urban  condi 
tions,  are  strictly  in  harmony  with  the  Jeffersonian  teaching.  If 
the  common  welfare  should  sometime  in  the  future  demand  the 
municipal  operation  of  street  railways,  or  even  the  national 
ownership  and  operation  of  the  general  railroad  system,  surely 
the  shade  of  Mr.  Jefferson  would  not  arise  to  utter  any  warning 
whatever. 

In  his  own  day  he  observed  that  strong  men  as  a  rule  make 
their  own  fortunes,  and  that  under  our  laws  of  inheritance  wealth 
tends  in  the  third  or  fourth  generation  toward  a  distribution  that 
robs  it  of  any  particular  danger  to  the  less  fortunate  members  of 
the  community.  There  is  no  reason  at  this  moment  to  regard 
Mr.  Jefferson's  opinion  on  that  subject  as  out  of  date. 

In  other  words,  Jefferson's  dictum  holds  perfectly  good  to-day 
that  our  governmental  safety  lies  in  numbers;  and  that  concen 
trated  wealth,  whether  in  individual  or  corporate  hands,  cannot 


324  ALBERT  SHAW 

possibly  in  the  long  run  take  away  any  of  the  liberties  or  rights 
of  an  enfranchised  people  intelligent  enough  to  know  what  it 
wants.  We  must  to  some  extent  pass  through  the  phase  of  indus 
trial  control  at  the  hands  of  individuals  holding  disproportionate 
wealth  and  power;  but  this  can  last  only  a  little  time.  The 
growth  of  the  general  wealth  of  the  country  is  at  a  higher 
rate  than  the  aggregation  of  riches  in  the  hands  of  multi 
millionaires. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  man  of  moderate  fortune  could 
afford  to  be  without  any  training  for  a  place  in  the  professional 
or  business  world.  But  the  fixed  fortune  now  yields  much  less 
income;  while  the  newer  demands  of  life  require  a  larger  outgo. 
Even  the  skilled  laborer  has  steadily  shortening  hours  and  con 
stantly  increasing  wages.  The  future  belongs  clearly  to  the 
workers,  and  they  in  due  time  will  become  the  associated  capital 
ists.  I  believe  it  will  come  to  be  a  matter  of  comparative  indiffer 
ence  whether  the  political  society  that  we  call  the  state  gradu 
ally  absorbs  the  industrial  organization,  or  whether  the  two  shall 
run  on  indefinitely  side  by  side.  In  either  case  the  principles  of 
democracy  must  have  a  higher  potency  than  ever;  and  more  than 
ever  they  must  rest  upon  the  basis  of  a  universal  training  for 
citizenship  and  for  honorable  membership  in  the  local  and  the 
general  community.  "One  good  government,"  Jefferson  ob 
served,  "is  a  blessing  to  the  whole  world"  —  having  reference 
to  its  illuminating  example.  In  1823,  in  a  letter  to  Albert 
Gallatin,  he  declared,  with  a  wisdom  that  the  flight  of  years  only 
serves  to  illustrate :  — 

The  advantages  of  representative  government,  exhibited  in  England 
and  America,  and  recently  in  other  countries,  will  procure  its  establish 
ment  everywhere  in  a  more  or  less  perfect  form;  and  this  will  insure  the 
amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the  world.  It  will  cost  years  of  blood 
and  be  well  worth  them. 

Let  me  conclude  with  one  more  quotation  from  Thomas 
Jefferson,  which  I  must  commend  to  the  doubters  and  pessimists, 
and  which  seems  to  me  to  embody  as  much  political,  economic, 
and  ethical  wisdom,  applicable  to  present  conditions,  as  any 
other  single  utterance  from  the  pen  of  any  other  American  states 
man.  What  I  am  about  to  quote  was  written  by  Mr.  Jefferson 
in  1817  to  a  friend  in  France,  M.  de  Marbois:  — 


JEFFERSON'S   DOCTRINES  UNDER  NEW  TESTS    325 

I  have  much  confidence  that  we  shall  proceed  successfully  for  ages  to 
come,  and  that,  contrary  to  the  principle  of  Montesquieu,  it  will  be  seen 
that,  the  larger  the  extent  of  country  the  more  firm  its  republican  struc 
ture,  if  founded,  not  on  conquest,  but  in  principles  of  compact  and 
equality.  My  hope  of  its  duration  is  built  much  on  the  enlargement  of 
the  resources  of  life,  going  hand  in  hand  with  the  enlargement  of  terri 
tory,  and  the  belief  that  men  are  disposed  to  live  honestly,  if  the  means 
of  doing  so  are  open  to  them. 


THE  AGE  OF  ERUDITION 

BY   JOHN   FRANKLIN   JAMESON 

Delivered  before  the  Beta  of  Illinois,  at  the  University  of  Chicago,  June  12, 1905. 

THE  invitation  with  which  your  committee  has  honored  me 
was,  I  believe,  at  first  expressed  in  the  form  of  a  request  that  I 
should  deliver  "this  year's  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Oration."  Even  at 
the  outset,  when  the  invitation  was  incautiously  accepted,  the 
name  "oration"  seemed  sufficiently  formidable.  As  time  went 
on,  and  May,  that  month  so  lauded  by  the  poets,  but  in  the 
academic  world  so  melancholy  with  committee  meetings  and 
masters'  examinations,  ran  its  appointed  course,  it  began  to  be 
plain  to  the  anxious  orator  that  "Phi  Beta  Kappa  Address"  was 
as  large  a  title  as  the  future  product  would  bear.  Now  that 
eleven  more  of  the  "daughters  of  Time,  the  hypocritic  days" 
of  June,  have  passed  away,  with  augmented  apprehension  and 
modesty  he  invites  your  attention  to  a  few  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
remarks  or  observations. 

It  is  almost  an  established  convention  that  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
orations  or  addresses  or  remarks  should  deal  either  with  some 
aspect  of  public  affairs  or  with  some  general  educational  topic. 
The  orator,  addresser,  or  remarker  of  the  present  year  asks  your 
indulgence  if  he  departs  wholly  from  this  convention.  A  peace 
able  person, 

"Who  never  set  a  squadron  in  the  field, 
Nor  the  division  of  a  battle  knows 
More  than  a  spinster," 

he  has  no  disposition  to  comment  on  the  recent  progress  of  war 
fare  in  either  Manchuria  or  Chicago.  He  is  conscious  of  no  mis 
sion  to  make  public  the  simple  thoughts  of  a  cloistered  student 
upon  the  ever-changing  forms  and  issues  of  politics,  "fanciful 
shapes  of  a  plastic  earth."  As  to  discourse  on  general  educational 
topics,  he  is  too  much  amazed  at  the  prodigious  and  ceaseless 
flood  of  such  discourse  to  undertake  to  augment  it,  too  doubtful 
whether  any  talker  on  general  themes  of  education  can  make  an 


THE  AGE  OF  ERUDITION  327 

impression  on  the  wearied  minds  of  1905  save  by  paradox  or  by 
one-sided  exaggeration.  It  is  possible  that  our  deluge  of  educa 
tional  talk  may  fructify  like  the  floods  of  Father  Nile;  but  is  it 
not  first  requisite  that  it  should  subside?  At  all  events,  the  sub 
ject  chosen  for  the  present  occasion  is  a  concrete  and  restricted 
topic  in  the  history  of  scholarship.  It  has  seemed  possible  that 
such  a  theme  might  be  of  interest  to  a  society  whose  common 
bond  is  that  of  attainment  in  scholarship,  especially,  perhaps,  in 
humanistic  studies;  nor  ought  those  who  are  devoted  to  such 
studies  to  neglect  the  history  of  them,  lest  they  fall  into  that 
provincialism  in  respect  to  time,  that  chauvinism  for  the  twen 
tieth  century,  so  to  call  it,  which  is  almost  as  narrowing  as  local 
provincialism.  In  view  of  our  modern  specialization,  it  will  not 
be  thought  unnatural,  though  doubtless  regrettable,  if  the  dis 
course  seems  to  be  most  often  of  historical  scholarship,  less  fre 
quently  and  less  precisely  of  scholarship  in  other  fields. 

The  episode  of  which  I  choose  to  speak  I  call  the  Age  of  Erudi 
tion.  By  this  is  meant  a  period  in  the  history  of  scholarship  ex 
tending  from  about  1650,  or  in  some  countries  from  about  1620, 
to  about  1750.  It  is,  perhaps,  well  known  that  in  the  history  of 
literature  the  phases  of  development  through  which  one  nation 
passes  are  often  identical  with  those  through  which  other  na 
tions  pass  at  the  same  time.  Thus,  romanticism  was  a  modula 
tion  of  key  in  the  general  intellectual  life  of  Europe,  and  not  of 
France  alone  or  of  Germany  alone.  Not  less  is  this  true  in  the 
history  of  learning.  Its  phases  are  pan-European,  not  merely 
national.  The  philologians  of  the  early  Renaissance  were,  in  all 
countries,  mainly  occupied  with  the  search  for  the  manuscripts 
of  classical  authors,  and  with  the  construction  of  commentaries 
upon  them.  They  were  for  the  most  part  dilettanti,  interested 
more  in  the  form  than  in  the  substance  of  the  classical  writings. 
The  philologians  of  the  sixteenth  century,  on  the  other  hand,  all 
over  Europe,  were  of  a  graver  and  more  austere  variety,  seeking 
with  a  similar  eagerness  the  remains  of  classical,  and  now  also  of 
ecclesiastical,  antiquity,  but  applying  to  their  interpretation  a 
power  of  thought  which  had  been  unknown  to  their  predecessors, 
and  a  new  determination  to  extract  from  the  records  of  the  past 
a  solution  of  mooted  questions  in  church  and  state.  That  fash 
ion  of  classical  scholarship  which  laid  most  stress  on  the  in- 


328  JOHN  FRANKLIN  JAMESON 

genious  emendation  of  texts  was  a  European  fashion,  and  not 
solely  the  local  mode  of  Leyden  or  of  Oxford.  In  the  twenties 
and  thirties  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  study  of  antiquity,  in 
all  parts  of  Europe,  widened  almost  suddenly  and  at  a  bound 
from  the  confined  pursuit  of  dynastic,  political,  and  literary  in 
formation  into  the  broad  consideration  of  all  aspects  of  ancient 
life,  public  and  private,  based  on  the  most  catholic  range  of 
materials,  literary,  epigraphic,  and  monumental,  interpreted  in 
the  new  and  brilliant  light  furnished  by  comparative  philology, 
comparative  religion,  and  comparative  jurisprudence. 

Similarly,  in  the  history  of  historical  scholarship  there  are 
times  and  seasons.  As  we  come  down  from  the  period  of  the 
Renaissance,  we  pass  through  several  successive  climates  of 
thought,  fashions  of  historical  expression  and  publication,  which 
succeed  each  other  almost  simultaneously  in  all  countries  of 
Europe.  The  Renaissance  had  its  own  phase.  Its  historians,  as 
we  might  expect,  deficient  in  originality  and  criticism,  strove 
mainly  to  imitate  in  literary  forms  the  venerated  historical 
writers  of  classical  antiquity.  Then  came  the  Reformation  and 
the  brilliant  age  of  Elizabeth  and  of  Philip  II,  and  we  find,  every 
where  in  Europe,  a  new  crop  of  historians,  no  longer  Italianate 
dilettanti,  but  men  of  affairs,  statesmen  like  Raleigh  and  De 
Thou  and  Sarpi,  soldiers  like  Davila  and  Montluc.  History,  for 
the  first  time  in  many  ages,  is  deemed  a  worthy  employment 
for  great  minds,  who  see  in  it  the  evolution  of  states,  the  course 
of  God's  providence,  the  touchstone  of  politics.  Out  of  such  a 
phase  developed  next  that  Age  of  Erudition  with  which  we  are 
concerned.  The  difference  was  as  wide  as  that  which  separates 
Amadis  of  Gaul  or  the  Faery  Queen  from  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. 
Europe  had  definitely  turned  its  back  on  chivalry  and  become 
pedestrian.  An  age  of  prose  set  in,  an  age  of  orderliness  and 
regularity.  After  the  Thirty  Years'  War  and  the  Great  Rebel 
lion,  physical  science,  especially  mechanics  and  astronomy,  the 
most  mathematical  of  the  physical  sciences,  took  the  place  of 
theology  as  the  object  of  the  keenest  intellectual  interest. 

From  such  an  age  we  see  the  world  deriving  humanistic  and 
historical  fruits  of  a  peculiar  type.  Prodigies  of  learning  are 
much  more  abundant  than  prodigies  of  genius.  Sober  and 
orderly  accumulation  of  material  is  the  mode.  The  presentation 


THE  AGE  OF  ERUDITION  329 

of  texts  and  of  historical  documents  in  the  completest  abundance 
is  more  esteemed  than  the  production  of  narrative  histories  or 
brilliant  discourses  upon  antiquity.  Folios  are  more  in  favor 
than  octavos  or  duodecimos,  Latin  more  than  the  vernacular. 
The  chief  reviewer  of  Mascou's  Teutsche  Geschichte  declared 
with  enthusiasm  that  it  was  so  good  that  it  was  a  pity  it  had 
not  been  written  in  Latin.  An  English  traveller  reports  that 
when  he  spoke  to  Dom  Jean  Mabillon  of  the  then  recent  dis 
coveries  at  Palmyra,  and  of  some  of  the  treatises  to  which  they 
had  given  rise,  the  great  scholar  expressed  his  regret  that  these, 
being  pure  matter  of  erudition,  had  been  written  in  English. 
"He  apprehended,  he  said,  that  it  would  be  with  us  as  it  had 
been  in  France,  where,  from  the  time  when  they  had  begun  to 
cultivate  their  own  language  so  attentively,  they  had  begun 
to  neglect  Greek  and  Latin." 

But  no  qualitative  description  can  give  an  adequate  concep 
tion  of  the  work  of  that  age,  for  one  of  its  most  salient  traits  is 
the  prodigious  quantity  of  its  published  achievement.  Within 
the  hundred  years  which  have  been  defined,  and  making  no  ac 
count  of  any  books  but  those  filled  with  original  documents  for 
early  ecclesiastical  and  mediaeval  history,  it  may  be  computed 
that  France  alone  produced  more  than  four  hundred  folio  vol 
umes  of  such  material  alone.  Even  from  the  commonplace  mer 
cantile  point  of  view,  so  enormous  a  mass  is  surely  impressive. 
That  it  could  be  absorbed  at  all  speaks  volumes*  if  one  may  say 
so,  for  the  intellectual  digestion  of  the  contemporary  public,  and 
is  nothing  less  than  astounding  to  the  present  age,  the  age  of 
primers  and  manuals  and  "vest-pocket  editions,"  which  has 
substituted  Liebig  capsules  for  the  mighty  roasts  of  Branksome 
Hall. 

Though  the  light  of  genius  might  be  absent  from  the  work  of 
the  age,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  this  wonderful 
mass  of  scholarly  achievement  was  the  mere  fruit  of  laborious 
industry,  purblind  or  indifferent  as  to  relative  values  and  as  to 
the  higher  uses  of  learning.  That  this  was  not  the  case,  that  a 
conscious  purpose  ran  through  these  gigantic  labors  of  accumu 
lation,  is  plain  from  the  intelligence  and  methodical  skill  with 
which  the  sciences  auxiliary  to  history  and  to  the  study  of  the 
classics  were  then  developed,  and  with  which  monumental  books 


330  JOHN  FRANKLIN  JAMESON 

of  reference  were  prepared.  On  the  side  of  the  classics,  indeed, 
this  was  perhaps  the  main  achievement  of  the  age.  In  pure 
classical  erudition  the  men  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Scali- 
gers  and  Casaubons  and  Lipsiuses,  might  claim  a  higher  distinc 
tion  than  Bentley  or  Gronovius.  But  the  science  of  inscriptions 
was  given  a  new  advancement  by  Fabretti  and  Muratori.  The 
Sieur  du  Cange  brought  out  his  encyclopaedic  dictionaries  of 
late  and  mediaeval  Greek  and  Latin.  Mabillon  by  his  classical 
treatise  De  Re  Diplomatica  laid  securely  and  for  all  time  the 
foundations  of  the  science  of  diplomatics.  Others  gave  system 
atic  and  scientific  form  to  chronology  and  palaeography,  to 
bibliography  and  numismatics.  Such  folio  dissertations  on  the 
auxiliary  sciences,  or  such  encyclopaedias  of  learning  as  Bayle's 
Dictionary,  showed  that  the  age,  myopic  though  it  might  be, 
was  at  least  partly  aware  that,  besides  accumulation,  the  proper 
development  of  European  learning  demanded  order,  scientific 
method,  critical  attention,  and  careful  thought  as  to  what  was 
worth  while  and  what  was  not. 

The  result  is  that,  while  the  scholarship  of  our  time  would  often 
desire  texts  more  critically  executed,  few  of  the  mighty  folios 
of  that  age  are  by  reason  of  their  subjects  deemed  useless  by  the 
modern  student.  Its  great  series  of  mediaeval  chronicles,  of  saintly 
biographies,  of  the  letters  and  documents  of  kings  and  popes  and 
prelates  and  monasteries  and  ecclesiastical  councils,  its  volumes 
of  patristic  literature  or  of  provincial  and  local  materials,  are 
still  the  inexhaustible  quarry  of  the  historian.  There  is  no  large 
subject  in  the  history  of  the  church  or  of  the  Middle  Ages  which 
can  be  thoroughly  studied  without  recourse  to  some  of  the  col 
lections  prepared  for  us  by  the  dauntless  industry  of  the  Age  of 
Erudition. 

Whence  came  these  enormous  powers  of  accomplishment? 
How  was  that  age  enabled,  without  the  modern  appliances  of 
labor-saving  and  time-saving  literary  machinery,  devoid  of  the 
typewriter  and  the  Library  Bureau,  to  pile  up  these  stupendous 
pyramids  of  knowledge?  Sometimes  we  are  prone  to  attribute  it 
to  superior  health  and  physical  endurance.  We  think  of  Leibniz, 
able  to  work  each  day  without  leaving  his  chair  for  eighteen 
hours  at  a  stretch,  or  of  the  marvellous  Magliabecchi,  who,  except 
in  winter,  never  went  to  bed,  but  slept  in  his  chair  when  drowsi- 


THE  AGE  OF  ERUDITION  331 

ness  at  length  overcame  him,  the  bed  meanwhile,  like  all  other 
articles  of  furniture  in  his  strange  apartment,  remaining  covered 
with  a  disordered  mass  of  books.  But  alongside  of  these  miracles 
of  digestion  and  endurance  we  have  Dom  Jean  Mabillon,  patient 
sufferer  of  innumerable  headaches,  and  his  master,  Dom  Luc 
d'Achery,  who  during  the  last  forty-six  years  of  his  life,  years  of 
incessant  scholarly  activity,  marked  by  prodigies  of  accumula 
tion,  was  never  able  to  leave  the  infirmary  of  his  convent. 

With  greater  security  we  may  in  part  attribute  the  quantity 
of  work  performed  by  these  erudites  to  the  simplicity  of  their 
lives.  The  modern  scholar  is  hindered  by  a  multitude  of  dis 
tractions.  He  must  lecture  to  classes.  He  must  conduct  a  semi 
nary.  He  must  attend  innumerable  committee  meetings.  He 
must  do  his  part  in  the  vitally  important  work  of  insuring  that 
neighboring  colleges  do  not  outstrip  his  own  in  numbers.  He 
must  appear  at  educational  conventions,  and  seem  to  say  some 
thing  not  already  said  a  thousand  times.  He  must  prepare  a 
textbook.  Perhaps  he  must  collect  money  for  Alma  Mater. 
Perhaps,  pushed  by  the  unchastened  social  ambition  of  his  wife 
or  of  his  own  divided  heart,  he  must  make  his  way  into  society, 
that  strange  unquiet  society  of  the  American  rich,  in  essence  so 
hostile  to  the  austere  pursuits  of  learning.  Contrast  all  this  with 
the  calm  life  of  the  cloister,  the  even  existence  of  Selden  or  of 
Muratori,  and  we  may  see  one  reason  for  more  solid  achieve 
ment.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  Magliabecchi's  indifference 
to  slumber  aided  more  in  the  building  up  of  his  extraordinary 
scholarship  than  the  little  device  in  the  door  of  his  apartment 
whereby  he  was  able  to  inspect  his  visitors  and  exclude  all  who 
would  waste  his  valued  time.  How  great  the  simplicity  which 
marked  the  life  of  at  least  the  Benedictine  scholars,  may  be 
judged  by  a  report  made  to  Louis  XIV,  by  La  Reynie,  his  lieu 
tenant  of  police,  from  which  it  appears  that  each  of  them  cost 
the  government  on  the  average  only  437  livres  and  a  fraction 
(say  eighty-five  dollars)  per  annum  —  surely  an  economical 
endowment  of  research. 

But,  beside  the  simplicity  of  the  individual  lives  of  scholars, 
there  was  a  profitable  simplicity  in  the  organization  of  society. 
The  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  as  we  have  said, 
loved  order  and  regularity.  Society,  as  if  instinctively,  organized 


332  JOHN  FRANKLIN  JAMESON 

itself  well  and  effectively.  In  this  well-arranged  society  the  cul 
tivators  of  erudition  fell  naturally  into  their  proper  place.  The 
world  of  scholars  was  distinct  from  that  of  litterateurs.  Madame 
de  Sevigne,  in  all  her  letters,  never  once  mentions  Mabillon,  the 
glory  of  contemporary  French  scholarship.  On  the  other  hand, 
Mabillon  and  his  correspondents,  it  is  said,  in  all  their  epistles 
mention  Racine  but  once,  and  no  other  contemporary  literary 
writer  at  all.  Scholars  were  not  under  temptation  to  struggle 
after  literary  and  popular  success,  losing  thereby,  no  doubt, 
much  that  gives  to  the  best  of  historical  writing  immortal  charm, 
but  gaining  in  the  power  of  purely  erudite  achievement.  It  was 
not  that  their  lives  were,  as  a  rule,  secluded.  Distinguished  so 
ciety  resorted  to  the  cloisters  of  Saint  Germain  des  Pres,  or  lis 
tened  to  the  mordant  tabletalk  of  John  Selden.  But  there  was, 
spontaneously  carried  into  operation,  a  division  of  functions 
between  the  pursuers  of  learning  and  the  cultivators  of  belles- 
lettres,  which  gave  the  former  the  opportunity  to  follow  their 
severe  muse  with  undistracted  attention. 

So  little  true  is  it  that  the  lovers  of  erudition  were  secluded 
from  the  world,  that  we  may  count  it  distinctly  as  one  of  the 
causes  of  their  astounding  productivity  that  they  enjoyed  in 
abundant  measure  the  favor  of  the  great.  The  patronage  which 
persons  of  high  position  in  that  age  bestowed  on  literary  men  in 
no  wise  prevented  them  from  visiting  with  similar  encourage 
ment  the  labors  of  the  learned.  They  appreciated  that  distinct 
ness  of  the  two  classes  of  which  we  have  spoken,  and  conceived 
of  both  alike  as  contributing  to  the  glory  of  their  reigns  or  their 
countries.  The  treatise  De  Re  Diplomatica  was  dedicated  to 
Colbert,  who  sought  in  vain  to  reward  with  a  pension  its  modest 
and  humble  author.  Baluze  was  Colbert's  librarian.  The  elec- 
tress  Sophia  was  the  intimate  friend  of  Leibniz.  Without  the 
aid  of  her  daughter,  the  electress  Sophia  Charlotte,  the  Prussian 
Academy  would  not  have  come  into  existence.  The  great  chan 
cellor  Somers,  the  lord  high  treasurer  Harley,  were  devoted  and 
invaluable  friends  of  erudition.  Queen  Christina  patronized  it 
in  her  eccentric  but  ardent  manner.  That  the  Grand  Monarque 
himself  was  as  appreciative  of  the  achievements  of  special 
scholarship  as  of  the  labors  of  poets  and  dramatists  might  not  be 
supposed.  It  may,  therefore,  not  be  without  interest  to  see  in 


THE  AGE  OF  ERUDITION  333 

the  simple-minded  narrative  of  one  of  the  brethren,  how  King 
Louis  XIV  exhibited  his  favor  toward  one  of  the  monastic  au 
thors  belonging  to  the  Congregation  of  St.  Maur.  The  episode 
concerns  the  history  of  the  town  of  St.  Denis,  by  Dom  Felibien. 
Says  the  narrator :  — 

Before  the  book  was  published,  Dom  Felibien,  accompanied  by  the 
prior  of  St.  Denis,  went  to  present  it  to  the  king,  and  was  introduced 
into  the  cabinet  of  his  Majesty  by  the  cardinal  of  Noailles.  After  the 
prior  had  paid  his  compliments  briefly,  the  author  presented  his  book, 
begging  the  king  to  receive  it  with  the  same  kindness  with  which  he  had 
in  former  times  received  divers  works  which  M.  Felibien,  his  father, 
had  composed  for  his  service.  The  king  read  the  whole  of  the  title-page, 
[and  made  some  comments  upon  the  engraved  frontispiece].  He  ran 
through  the  first  pages,  and  coming  upon  the  plan  of  the  town  of  St. 
Denis,  "There,"  said  he,  "is  a  town  which  cost  us  a  good  deal  in  former 
tunes,"  referring  to  the  civil  wars  of  1652.  Again  he  turned  over  the 
pages  of  the  book  for  some  time,  and  said:  "There  is  a  good  book." 
Then,  closing  it,  he  said  to  the  prior  of  St.  Denis:  "Father,  I  thank  you; 
pray  to  God  for  me  during  my  life  and  after  my  death."  "Sire,"  an 
swered  the  prior,  "the  whole  kingdom  is  too  deeply  interested  in  the 
preservation  of  your  Majesty  to  fail  in  this."  On  going  out  from  the 
grand  cabinet  of  Versailles,  Dom  Felibien  and  his  prior  went  to  present 
the  work  to  Messeigneurs  the  Dauphin,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  the 
Duke  of  Berry,  his  brother,  who  received  it  very  favorably.  After  hav 
ing  made  their  present  to  the  chancellor,  they  went  to  Saint-Cyr  to  offer 
a  copy  to  Madame  de  Maintenon.  Some  days  afterward  Dom  Felibien 
went  with  Dom  Mabillon  to  St.  Germain-en-Laye,  where  he  presented 
his  history  to  the  young  king  of  England,  James  HI  [the  "Old  Pre 
tender"],  who  received  the  present  with  evidences  of  joy  and  esteem. 
He  presented  it  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  who  promised  to  read  it. 

Eight  days  after  this  memorable  distribution  the  king,  seeing  the 
Cardinal  de  Noailles,  said  to  him:  "Really,  Monsieur  le  Cardinal,  I  did 
not  suppose  that  the  history7  of  Saint-Denis  could  be  so  varied  and 
agreeable  as  it  is.  I  have  found  the  reading  of  it  extremely  interesting. 
It  must  be  that  Father  Felibien  has  had  good  memoirs  as  materials, 
especially  for  what  relates  to  my  reign,  for  I  find  him  very  exact."  These 
praises  had  no  sooner  proceeded  from  the  mouth  of  the  king  than  the 
new  history  became  an  object  of  interest  to  all  the  court,  which  occupied 
itself  with  it  for  several  days.  In  consequence,  the  sale  of  the  work  was 
so  rapid  that  in  six  weeks  more  than  two  hundred  copies  were  disposed 
of.  Let  us  not  forget  to  mention  that  the  Duke  of  Perth  wrote  to  Dom 
Felibien  on  behalf  of  the  king  of  England,  as  follows:  "The  king  has 
carefully  examined  your  work,  Father,  since  the  time  when  you  pre 
sented  it  to  him.  He  is  charmed  with  it,  and  has  ordered  me  to  thank 
you  cordially  on  his  behalf.'* 


334  JOHN  FRANKLIN  JAMESON 

Still  further  pursuing  the  reasons  for  the  extraordinary  fertil 
ity  we  have  noticed,  we  may  attribute  much  of  it  to  the  excep 
tional  extent  of  the  habit  of  mutual  cooperation.  Because  these 
scholars  worked  in  quietness  and  somewhat  in  seclusion  from  the 
world,  we  are  not  to  think  of  them  as  working  in  isolation  so  far 
as  other  scholars  were  concerned.  On  the  contrary,  they  main 
tained  a  correspondence  that  is  striking  in  its  range.  The 
National  Library  at  Paris  possesses  more  than  twelve  hundred 
letters  addressed  to  Abbe  Nicaise,  by  more  than  one  hundred 
and  thirty  correspondents  living  in  France,  Italy,  Holland, 
Prussia,  and  Switzerland;  yet  Abbe  Nicaise  was  but  a  provincial 
scholar,  by  no  means  of  the  highest  repute.  Mabillon  maintained 
a  correspondence  on  matters  of  scholarship,  which  put  the  dis 
coveries  and  conclusions  of  each  at  the  service  of  his  friends,  with 
numberless  men  of  similar  tastes  —  princes  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  like  the  cardinal  bishop  of  Minister  or  the  abbot  of 
Dissentis,  curators  of  books  and  manuscripts  like  the  librarian 
of  St.  Gall,  official  historiographers  like  Leibniz,  professors  of 
Oxford  or  of  Leyden,  Jesuits  at  Trent  and  councillors  at  Copen 
hagen,  cardinals  and  noble  archaeologists  and  simple  Benedictines 
at  Rome  —  to  say  nothing  of  the  stream  of  letters  which,  in  an 
age  when  journals  of  erudition  hardly  yet  existed,  flowed  from 
every  part  of  France  to  his  humble  cell  at  Saint  Germain  des 
Pres.  Extensive  travels,  long  tours  of  search  for  manuscripts, 
still  further  contributed  to  bring  all  the  great  scholars  of  Europe 
into  mutual  association. 

But  a  more  organic  union  of  forces  was  put  into  practice,  and 
formed  one  of  the  most  salient  characteristics  of  the  period.  In 
that  earlier  age  of  solid  learning  of  which  we  have  spoken, 
roughly  corresponding  to  the  sixteenth  century,  there  had  been 
little  of  this.  Elizabethan  Englishmen,  Frenchmen  of  the  civil 
wars,  Dutchmen  of  the  heroic  age,  were  not  easy  to  combine. 
But  the  seventeenth  century,  with  its  instinctive  love  of  order 
and  system,  readily  fell  into  the  habit  of  cooperation,  and  saw 
its  value  in  application  to  tasks  too  vast  even  for  those  giants 
of  erudition. 

When  Heribert  Rosweide,  professor  in  the  Jesuit  College 
at  Douay,  formed  the  vast  design  of  the  Ada  Sanctorum,  in 
tending  to  incorporate  in  it  all  the  original  documents  for  the 


THE  AGE  OF  ERUDITION  335 

lives  of  all  the  saints  of  the  Roman  Church,  with  scholarly  intro 
ductions  and  annotations,  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  to  whom  the 
project  was  described,  exclaimed:  "Has  he  discovered  that  he 
will  live  two  hundred  years?"  The  cardinal  was  not  deceived 
as  to  the  magnitude  of  the  task.  Nearly  three  hundred  years 
have  passed  away,  and  the  Ada  Sanctorum  is  still  unfinished. 
Perhaps,  indeed,  the  twentieth  century  will  not  see  its  comple 
tion,  for  the  last-published  of  its  gigantic  folio  volumes,  the  sixty- 
sixth,  advances  but  a  little  way  among  the  saints  of  early 
November.  But  when  Heribert  Rosweide  died,  in  1629,  with 
little  more  accomplished  than  the  collecting  of  a  large  mass  of 
mediaeval  manuscripts,  the  organization  and  discipline  of  the 
Jesuits  proved  ready  means  of  insuring  the  continuance  of  his 
work.  The  authorities  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  ordered  a  distin 
guished  young  scholar  named  John  Bolland,  or  Bollandus,  to 
continue  it.  Bolland  entered  upon  his  labors  with  enthusiasm, 
indefatigable  zeal,  and  mature  good  judgment.  He  engaged  in  a 
most  extensive  correspondence,  and  manuscript  materials  from 
all  quarters  of  the  globe  accumulated  in  enormous  abundance 
in  his  little  garret  rooms  in  the  Jesuit  House  at  Antwerp.  The 
plan  formed  by  Bollandus  was  even  wider  than  that  of  Rosweide, 
and  before  long  he  saw  that  he  could  never  hope  to  accomplish 
more  than  a  small  fraction  of  it  alone.  In  1635  he  took  as  asso 
ciate  Godfrey  Henschen,  a  scholar  of  the  highest  rank  and  of 
great  originality,  who  enlarged  the  scope  of  the  work  much 
beyond  the  project  of  Bolland.  The  first  two  volumes,  embrac 
ing,  in  the  order  of  the  Roman  calendar,  the  saints  for  January, 
appeared  in  1643;  the  next  three,  for  February,  in  1658.  Mean 
while  a  third  had  been  added  to  the  little  band,  in  the  person  of 
Daniel  Papebroch,  who  for  fifty-five  years  devoted  himself  to 
this  great  task,  and  who  was  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  the 
Bollandist  fathers.  Twenty-three  folio  volumes,  replete  with 
learning  and  contributing  immensely  to  the  knowledge  of  mediae 
val  history,  remained  to  attest  the  industry  and  high  scholarship 
of  these  first  three. 

The  value  of  a  collection  of  mediaeval  biographies  of  saints 
may  perhaps  demand  a  word  of  explanation.  Constituted  as 
mediaeval  society  was,  with  piety  and  edification  so  great  a  con 
cern,  with  the  clerical  class  so  widely  influential  and  almost 


336  JOHN  FRANKLIN  JAMESON 

alone  educated,  the  lives  of  saints  came  naturally  to  constitute 
the  most  extensive  branch  of  biography.  Sometimes,  as  in  the 
case  of  St.  Dunstan  or  St.  Louis,  St.  Francis  or  St.  Olaf,  the  saint 
occupied  such  a  position  in  the  world  that  the  records  of  his  life 
constitute  an  important  part  of  the  most  conspicuous  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  history  of  his  time.  But  in  the  fortunate  democracy 
of  the  Roman  Church,  saints  might  spring  from  any  walk  in  life 
and  play  their  part  on  a  humble  as  well  as  on  a  conspicuous  stage. 
Therefore  their  pious  biographers,  relating  human  lives  with  a 
degree  of  detail  which  historians  never  thought  of  bestowing  on 
any  but  kings,  give  us,  quite  without  intending  it,  invaluable 
glimpses  into  the  actual  existence  of  classes  in  mediaeval  society 
of  whose  obscure  and  inarticulate  mode  of  life  we  should  other 
wise  learn  nothing  at  all. 

But  the  Bollandist  Ada  Sanctorum  was  not  simply  a  col 
lection  of  saints'  lives  printed  one  after  another.  Prefaces  and 
annotations  brought  out  the  importance  to  history  of  each  piece, 
and  expended  a  great  wealth  of  learning  in  discussion  of  the 
historical  points  involved.  Critical  treatises  of  wider  scope  are 
inserted,  such  as  that  dissertation  on  mediaeval  charters,  Father 
Papebroch's  Propylceum  Antiquarium,  which,  by  attacking  the 
genuineness  of  the  Merovingian  charters  of  the  Benedictine 
abbey  of  St.  Denis,  elicited  Mabillon's  more  scientific  and 
authoritative  treatise.  Further,  not  a  few  esssays  on  points  of 
purely  secular  history  appear  in  the  vast  repository.  Jesuits  as 
they  were,  the  Bollandists  were  marked  by  a  thorough  honesty 
and  a  scrupulous  fidelity,  and  an  independent  spirit  of  historical 
criticism  was  maintained  by  them  in  every  subsequent  genera 
tion.  No  finer  example  could  be  found,  either  of  scholarly  candor 
or  of  scholarly  humility,  than  the  letter  which  Papebroch  wrote 
to  Mabillon  after  reading  the  famous  treatise  De  Re  Diplo- 
matica  by  which  his  own  work  on  the  subject  had  been  demol 
ished  and  superseded :  — 

I  avow  to  you  that  I  have  no  other  satisfaction  in  having  written  upon 
the  subject  than  that  of  having  given  occasion  for  the  writing  of  a 
treatise  so  masterly.  It  is  true  that  I  felt  at  first  some  pain  in  reading 
your  book,  where  I  saw  myself  refuted  in  so  unanswerable  a  manner; 
but  finally  the  utility  and  the  beauty  of  so  precious  a  work  soon  over 
came  my  weakness,  and,  full  of  joy  at  seeing  the  truth  in  its  clearest 


THE  AGE  OF  ERUDITION  337 

light,  I  invited  my  companion  to  come  and  share  the  admiration  with 
which  I  felt  myself  filled.  Therefore  have  no  hesitation,  whenever  occa 
sion  shall  arise,  in  saying  publicly  that  I  have  come  over  completely  to 
your  way  of  thinking.  I  beg  for  your  affection.  I  am  not  a  man  of  learn 
ing,  but  one  who  desires  to  learn. 

The  successors  of  the  first  Bollandists,  in  the  first  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  did  not  maintain  the  same  high  level  of 
excellence.  But  the  work  went  on  with  undiminished  industry, 
and  was  feeling  the  effects  of  a  certain  revival  of  historical 
studies  in  the  middle  period  of  that  century,  when  the  Pope  sup 
pressed  the  Jesuit  order,  in  1773.  The  prestige  of  the  Bolland 
ists  saved  them  for  a  time  from  the  Austrian  government,  but 
finally  Joseph  II  dissolved  them,  in  1788,  when  only  the  seventh 
volume  for  October  had  been  completed.  On  the  invasion  of  the 
Austrian  Netherlands  by  the  French  revolutionary  armies,  their 
priceless  library  was  dispersed,  part  burned  and  part  hidden. 
With  their  subsequent  history  we  have  perhaps  no  concern.  It 
will  suffice  to  say  that  in  1836  the  society  or  group  was  reconsti 
tuted  by  four  learned  Belgian  Jesuits,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
first  king  of  the  Belgians,  Leopold  I;  that  the  work  has  since 
then  steadily  advanced  under  the  conduct  of  three  or  four 
devoted  scholars;  that  their  present  establishment  is  in  the  Col 
lege  St.  Michel  at  Brussels;  and  that  the  November  and  Decem 
ber  saints  may  be  relied  on  to  furnish  occupation  for  a  century 
more. 

But,  the  Bollandists  apart,  the  leading  place  in  erudite  labors 
can  by  no  means  be  claimed  for  the  Jesuits.  That  preeminence 
belongs  rather,  in  France  especially,  to  the  Benedictines,  and 
particularly  to  those  of  the  Congregation  of  St.  Maur.  One  of 
the  results  of  the  Catholic  Counter-Reformation  had  been  the 
reform  of  the  monastic  orders.  An  important  feature  or  conse 
quence  of  such  a  reform  was  the  revival  of  monastic  studies. 
Such  labors  were  among  those  enjoined  upon  the  members  of  the 
regular  orders,  their  houses  preserved  great  accumulations  of 
manuscripts,  and  the  monastic  principles  of  humility  and  obedi 
ence  placed  the  services  of  all  at  the  disposal  of  the  gifted  few, 
and  made  those  few  willing  to  labor,  year  after  year,  at  tasks 
which  could  be  finished  only  by  the  toil  of  successive  generations; 
in  other  words,  to  labor  for  the  fame  of  their  order  or  congrega- 


338  JOHN  FRANKLIN  JAMESON 

tion,  rather  than  their  own  individual  fame.  One  of  the  most 
important  works  of  the  class  we  are  considering  bears  on  its  title- 
page  no  other  sign  of  authorship  than  "by  two  Benedictines  of 
the  Congregation  of  St.  Maur." 

The  Congregation  of  St.  Maur  had  been  founded  early  in  the 
reign  of  Louis  XIII.  The  chief  seat  of  its  scholarly  activity  was 
the  abbey  of  Saint  Germain  des  Pres.  The  first  superior-general, 
Dom  Gregoire  Tarisse,  and  the  librarian  of  the  abbey,  Dorn  Luc 
d'Achery,  very  early  in  the  history  of  the  congregation  planned 
most  of  the  gigantic  enterprises  which  were  to  occupy  for  a  cen 
tury  the  brethren  of  that  convent  and  to  make  it  the  chief  glory 
of  French  scholarship.  Under  the  general  supervision  of  Achery 
and  afterward  of  Mabillon,  they  poured  forth  vast  series  of 
chronicles  of  France,  of  writings  of  the  Fathers,  of  lives  of  Bene 
dictine  saints,  of  charters  and  documents,  ponderous  works  on 
ecclesiastical  antiquities  or  on  the  auxiliary  sciences,  histories  of 
religious  houses  and  bodies,  provincial  histories,  and  great  col 
lections  of  miscellaneous  mediaeval  literature. 

Though  none  rivalled  the  Benedictines  of  St.  Maur,  other 
orders  such  as  the  Dominicans  and  Franciscans  did  their  part  by 
labors  of  similar  character  and  intention.  From  papal  librarians, 
working  amid  the  splendors  of  the  Vatican,  to  Brother  Michael 
O'Clery  compiling  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  in  his 
lonely  hut  in  the  ruined  convent  at  Donegal  —  may  we  not  say 
to  Cotton  Mather  and  Thomas  Prince  in  the  pastoral  studies  of 
the  Old  North  and  Old  South  Churches?  —  the  tribes  of  ecclesi 
astics  were  stirred  by  a  common  impulse  to  preserve  in  worthy 
fashion  the  records  of  the  past. 

Not  alone  in  the  ecclesiastical  world,  however,  was  the  drift 
toward  organization  and  cooperation  manifest.  It  has  sometimes 
been  said  that  the  Royal  Society  of  London  was  founded  by 
Charles  II,  soon  after  the  Restoration  (1662),  in  order  that  eager 
minds  might  occupy  themselves  in  the  safe  fields  of  physical 
science  rather  than  in  the  volcanic  areas  of  politics.  However 
strong  such  a  motive  may  have  been  in  the  mind  of  a  king  who, 
as  he  said,  had  made  it  his  first  principle  of  action  that  he  would 
not  set  out  again  on  his  travels,  we  are  obliged  to  seek  for  wider 
explanations  when  we  see  the  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Paris 
brought  into  existence  only  three  years  later,  the  French  Acad- 


THE  AGE  OF  ERUDITION  339 

emy  already  in  existence  for  almost  a  generation,  the  Prussian 
Academy  instituted  in  1700,  the  Academy  of  Inscriptions  and 
Belles  Lettres  the  next  year,  the  St.  Petersburg  Academy  a  few 
years  later,  to  say  nothing  of  those  more  especially  historical 
academies,  in  Madrid  and  Lisbon,  in  Copenhagen  and  Stock 
holm,  which  followed  before  long.  Academies  founded  by  the 
government,  and  able  to  combine,  direct,  and  utilize  for  the 
nation's  good  the  various  scientific  endeavors  of  its  most  active 
minds,  corresponded  to  a  definite  desire  of  the  age.  The  prime 
motive  is  plain  in  the  correspondence  of  Leibniz,  the  wonderful 
polymath  who  best  represents  the  mind  of  the  closing  seven 
teenth  century,  respecting  the  foundation  of  the  Prussian 
Academy  of  Sciences.  That  famous  body,  to-day  the  foremost 
of  such  establishments,  had  indeed  a  quaint  assortment  of  ori 
gins.  Erhard  Weigel  had  planned  for  a  society  which  should 
seize  the  opportunity  presented  by  the  year  1700  for  the  reform 
of  the  calendar  in  the  Protestant  German  states,  and  which 
should  be  sustained  by  enjoying  a  monopoly  of  the  sale  of  alma 
nacs.  The  electress  labored  for  an  astronomical  observatory.  The 
elector  added  provisions  looking  toward  the  purifying  of  the 
German  language  and  the  study  of  German  history  and  institu 
tions.  But  above  and  behind  all  stood  the  fundamental  idea  of 
the  comprehensive  genius  who  was  truly  the  founder  of  the  acad 
emy,  and  who  ever  since  he  was  twenty-one  had  not  ceased  to 
labor  toward  such  an  end  —  the  idea  of  forwarding  productive 
investigation  instead  of  reproducing  in  dogmatic  form  the 
Aristotelian  or  any  other  system,  and  of  forwarding  it  by  con 
sultation  and  cooperation  on  the  part  of  an  organized  body 
representing  the  best  and  most  serviceable  intellects  of  Bran 
denburg  and  Prussia,  and  perhaps  eventually  of  all  Protestant 
Europe. 

The  works  put  forth  by  the  academies  were  much  of  the  same 
genus  as  those  brought  out  by  the  Benedictine  and  other  such 
establishments,  except  that  in  the  field  of  history  they  made 
choice  of  civil  historical  material,  rather  than  ecclesiastical,  for 
the  substance  of  their  great  series,  as  was  natural  to  corporations 
having  so  close  a  relation  to  the  state. 

But  if  it  has  become  abundantly  clear  what  sort  of  labors 
characterized  the  age  which  we  have  called  the  Age  of  Erudition, 


340  JOHN  FRANKLIN  JAMESON 

and  why  they  were  so  extensive,  it  is  time  to  inquire  why  just 
such  an  age  supervened  when  it  did.  If  the  main  interest  of 
political  history  lies  in  the  endeavor  to  trace  relations  of  cause 
and  effect,  surely  not  less  important  is  it  for  an  audience  of 
scholars  to  attempt  to  do  this  in  the  history  of  scholarship.  But 
neither  in  politics  nor  in  letters  and  learning  do  effects  flow  with 
mechanical  simplicity  from  single  and  plainly  perceptible  causes. 
The  Age  of  Erudition,  we  may  be  sure,  had  divers  origins.  We 
have  seen  that  it  was  to  a  large  extent  identical  with  the  age  of 
Louis  XIV,  to  a  less  extent  with  the  age  of  Queen  Anne.  But 
probably  we  are  not  warranted  in  supposing  that  it  came  either 
because  of  or  in  spite  of  the  brilliant  literary  development  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  associate  with  those  two  names;  for,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  world  of  letters  and  the  world  of  scholarship 
had  little  to  do  with  each  other.  Even  the  historians  and  the 
historical  scholars  were  classes  apart  —  a  condition  observed  also 
in  our  own  age,  and  poignantly  lamented  by  those  who  can 
admire  but  one  variety  of  excellence. 

It  is  probable  that  a  more  definite  connection  can  be  traced 
between  the  despotism  of  Louis  XIV  and  his  contemporary 
monarchs  and  the  type  of  historical  writing  which  in  their  day 
takes  the  leading  place.  When  Antonius  Sanderus  began  the 
publication  of  his  Flandria  Illustrata,  the  Spanish  viceroy  of  the 
Netherlands  confiscated  a  part  of  it  because  he  gave  too  full 
and  interesting  an  exhibit  of  the  ancient  municipal  liberties 
of  the  Flemish  towns.  When  Giannone,  exiled  from  Italy  for 
having  spoken  too  freely  in  his  History  of  Naples,  was  living 
quietly  at  Geneva,  he  was  induced  to  attend  mass  in  a  Catholic 
village  on  the  Savoyard  side  of  the  boundary,  seized  by  agents 
of  the  king  of  Sardinia,  and  imprisoned  at  Turin  for  the  rest  of 
his  life.  When  such  conditions  prevailed  in  Europe,  it  would  not 
be  surprising  if  scholars  felt  a  strong  impulse  to  keep  to  the  safe 
ground  of  classical  archaeology  or  the  editing  and  publication  of 
historical  documents.  But  it  should  be  remembered,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  despotism  was  not  unknown  in  previous  centuries, 
yet  did  not  cause  an  age  of  erudition;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  government  of  Queen  Anne  or  of  the  Dutch  Republic 
was  not  despotic,  yet  Madox  and  Strype  and  Rymer  and  Aitzema 
are  of  precisely  the  same  type  as  Du  Cange  or  Muratori. 


THE  AGE  OF  ERUDITION  341 

Deeper  causes  must  be  invoked.  Perhaps  there  is  always  an 
encyclopaedic  tendency  in  the  age  next  after  one  of  brilliant  lit 
erary  achievement;  a  desire,  after  men  of  genius  have  had  their 
way  with  the  world  for  a  season,  soberly  to  take  account  of 
stock,  to  sum  up  what  has  been  accomplished,  to  survey  it 
methodically  with  a  view  to  its  relation  to  what  is  still  unper 
formed.  The  sense  that  great  things  have  been  done,  though  in 
an  unsystematic  manner,  leads  to  the  desire  to  preserve  their 
results  in  systematic  compilations.  So  Grsevius  and  Meursius 
gather  into  their  Thesauri  the  dissertations  and  the  philologi 
cal  notes  which  their  more  brilliant  predecessors,  the  Scaligers 
and  the  Turnebuses  of  the  sixteenth  century,  have  thrown  off 
in  such  extraordinary  profusion.  Where  the  historians  of  the 
Elizabethan  age,  experienced  often  in  the  public  affairs  of  their 
respective  countries,  write  out  of  full  minds  and  rely  upon  the 
statesman's  insight  or  the  soldier's  rapid  vision  and  clear  mem 
ory,  those  who  come  after  them,  presumably  by  way  of  reaction, 
are  prone  to  rely  rather  on  completeness  of  evidence,  industri 
ously  gathered  and  carefully  sifted  and  arranged.  It  may  be 
worth  while  to  call  to  mind  that  the  great  writers  of  classical 
antiquity  were  presently  followed  by  a  crop  of  critics  and  com 
pilers,  the  Alexandrian  Greeks  and  the  Roman  makers  of  ency 
clopaedias,  Cassiodorus  and  Martianus  Capella.  Again,  after  the 
brilliant  thirteenth  century,  the  century  of  Dante  and  Frederick 
II,  of  St.  Francis  and  Alfonso  the  Wise,  we  find  in  the  fourteenth 
and  early  fifteenth  centuries  an  age  of  erudition  bearing  many 
of  the  tokens  of  that  which  we  have  been  contemplating  this 
morning.  The  historians  of  that  time,  in  particular,  quite  with 
out  the  originality  or  mental  grasp  which  marked  some  of  their 
predecessors  in  the  great  days  of  mediaeval  historical  writing, 
set  themselves  to  the  making  of  great  compilations  into  which 
they  essayed  to  bring  all  the  good  historical  material  on  which 
they  could  lay  their  hands.  That  such  encyclopaedic  works  were 
what  their  public  desired  is  plain  from  the  fact  that  of  Higden's 
Polychronicon,  the  chief  English  repertory  of  this  sort,  more  than 
a  hundred  manuscripts  are  extant,  though  it  is  a  poor  thing  and 
of  enormous  extent. 

But  after  all,  if  we  fix  our  minds  chiefly  on  those  of  the  seven 
teenth-century  erudites  who  came  first  —  on  Ussher  and  Selden 


342  JOHN  FRANKLIN  JAMESON 

and  Rosweide  and  Duchesne  —  we  shall  be  likely  to  conclude 
that  the  cause  of  their  work  and  of  its  peculiar  quality  was  a 
desire  for  a  real  and  permanent  solution  of  questions  which  the 
preceding  age,  that  age  of  turmoil  and  ferment,  of  civil  and  reli 
gious  struggle,  had  raised,  but  had  not  answered.  Ussher  un 
questionably  studied  in  order  that  church  controversies  might 
be  settled.  Selden,  with  a  broader  mind,  worked  in  order  that 
great  questions  in  church  and  state  might  be  settled  by  appeal 
to  the  past,  or  at  least  viewed  sub  specie  ceternitatis.  A  passage 
in  the  dedication  to  his  History  of  Tythes  paints  to  the  life  his 
attitude :  — 

The  neglect  or  only  vulgar  regard  of  the  fruitful  and  precious  part  of 
it  [antiquity],  which  gives  necessary  light  to  the  present  in  matter  of 
state,  law,  history,  and  the  understanding  of  good  authors,  is  but  pre 
ferring  that  kind  of  ignorance  which  our  short  life  alone  allows  us  before 
the  many  ages  of  former  experience  and  observation,  which  may  so 
accumulate  years  to  us  as  if  we  had  lived  even  from  the  beginning  of 
time. 

Selden's  thought  is  profitable  for  all  those  who,  in  any  manner, 
historically  or  philologically,  occupy  themselves  with  the  records 
of  the  past.  There  are  many  signs  that  we  have  entered  on  a 
period,  in  respect  to  these  studies,  not  dissimilar  to  that  Age  of 
Erudition  which  we  have  been  considering  —  a  period  distin 
guished  more  by  extensive  accumulation  and  critical  sifting  of 
the  evidences  than  by  new  endeavors  toward  their  interpreta 
tion.  Learned  periodicals  take  the  place  of  the  correspondence 
of  the  erudite  Benedictines;  universities,  and  philological  and 
historical  societies,  that  of  the  religious  orders.  Governments, 
acting  through  academies  or  archive-establishments  or  scientific 
missions,  carry  on  that  work  of  productive  investigation  which 
Bacon  and  Leibniz  desired.  Individual  foundations  for  research 
cooperate  with  them.  The  academies  themselves  are  carrying 
the  work  of  scientific  organization  a  step  higher,  as  witness  the 
Cartell  of  the  five  leading  German  academies,  and  the  Interna 
tional  Association  of  Academies.  The  mind  of  scholars  is,  in 
general,  occupied  with  problems  of  much  the  same  order  as  those 
which  prevailed  two  hundred  years  ago.  In  such  a  time  it  is 
important  to  bear  in  mind  those  lessons  of  concentration  and 
modest  limitation  of  individual  work  which  the  story  of  the 


THE  AGE  OF  ERUDITION  343 

Benedictines  may  teach;  and  to  be  comforted  against  the  dry- 
ness  of  such  an  atmosphere  by  remembering  that,  when  the  Age 
of  Erudition  had  done  its  work  of  accumulating  and  sifting  evi 
dence,  there  emerged  upon  the  Europe  of  1750  the  coordinating 
and  philosophical  ideas  of  the  Aufklarung,  of  Turgot,  Montes 
quieu,  Hume,  and  Voltaire.  Above  all,  it  is  salutary  to  compel 
our  minds  to  travel,  as  Selden's  did,  beyond  the  passing  fashions 
of  the  day  or  the  century,  and  to  see  our  work  in  the  light  of  jthe 
long  history  of  human  endeavor  after  truth,  conscious,  on  the 
one  hand,  that  the  form  of  our  work  is  transitory;  conscious,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  the  main  currents  of  scholarship  are  parts 
of  an  eternal  process. 


ACADEMIC  FREEDOM 

BY   CHARLES   WILLIAM   ELIOT 

Delivered  before  the  Theta  of  New  York,  at  Cornell  University, 
May  29,  1907. 

MY  subject  is  Academic  Freedom,  a  difficult  subject,  not  as 
yet  very  well  understood  in  this  country,  but  likely  to  be  of  in 
creasing  interest  and  importance  throughout  the  coming  century. 
I  have  divided  my  essay  into  three  parts :  the  first  dealing  with 
academic  freedom  for  teachers;  the  second  with  academic  free 
dom  for  students;  and  the  third  with  university  administration 
as  a  type  of  free  government  in  general. 

ACADEMIC  FREEDOM  FOB  TEACHERS 

In  a  democracy,  and  in  the  political  and  social  organizations 
to  which  democracy  takes  kindly,  there  are  some  new  difficulties 
in  regard  to  academic  freedom  for  teachers.  The  principal  new 
difficulty  is  the  pressure  in  a  democracy  of  a  concentrated  multi 
tudinous  public  opinion.  The  great  majority  of  the  people  in  a 
given  community  may  hold  passionately  to  some  dogma  in  reli 
gion,  some  economic  doctrine,  or  some  political  or  social  opinion 
or  practice,  and  may  resent  strongly  the  expression  by  a  public 
teacher  of  religious,  economic,  political,  or  social  views  unlike 
those  held  by  the  majority.  In  parts  of  our  country  at  this  mo 
ment  liberty  of  thought  and  speech  on  certain  topics  is,  to  say 
the  least,  imperfect  for  men  who  do  not  coincide  with  the  prevail 
ing  opinions  and  sentiments  of  the  community  in  which  they 
dwell.  Even  in  colleges  and  universities  in  those  parts  a  teacher 
holding  unpopular  opinions  could,  until  very  recently,  hardly 
escape  the  alternative  of  silence  or  banishment.  The  teaching  of 
history  in  schools  and  colleges  is  watched  with  great  suspicion 
by  different  parties  in  church  and  state,  lest  some  unwelcome 


ACADEMIC  FREEDOM  345 

lessons  of  present  application  be  drawn  from  the  history  of  the 
past.  Professors  of  economics  are  not  even  supposed  to  be  free  in 
some  American  communities  which  have  held  for  generations 
with  great  unanimity  the  doctrine  of  protection.  The  endowed 
institutions  are  by  no  means  exempt  f rom^this  strong  pressure  of 
public  opinion;  for  they  are  sensitive  to  threats  that  the  stream 
of  gifts  on  which  they  depend  will  be  cut  off.  This  multitudinous 
tyrannical  opinion  is  even  more  formidable  to  one  who  offends  it 
than  the  despotic  will  of  a  single  tyrant  or  small  group  of  tyrants. 
It  affects  the  imagination  more,  because  it  seems  omnipresent, 
merciless,  and  irresponsible;  and  therefore  resistance  to  it  re 
quires  a  rare  kind  of  moral  courage.  For  this  difficulty  there  is  no 
remedy  except  the  liberalizing  of  the  common  people,  or  at  least 
of  the  educated  class.  To  be  sure,  there  is  another  mode  of  pre 
venting  free  teaching  on  dangerous  subjects,  which  is  quite  as 
effective  as  persecution  and  much  quieter,  namely,  the  omission 
of  all  teaching  on  those  subjects,  and  the  elimination  of  reading 
matter  bearing  on  them.  Thus  the  supreme  subject  of  theology 
has  been  banished  from  the  state  universities,  and  from  many  of 
the  endowed  universities;  and  in  some  parts  of  the  country  the 
suppression  of  Bible-reading  and  prayer  at  the  opening  exercises 
of  the  schools,  in  deference  to  Roman  Catholic  objections,  has 
resulted  in  the  children's  getting  no  direct  ethical  instruction 
whatsoever.  A  comical  illustration  of  this  control  by  omission  is 
the  recent  suggestion  that  Shakespeare's  Merchant  of  Venice 
ought  not  to  be  read  in  any  school  where  there  are  Jewish  chil 
dren;  because  it  contains  an  unamiable  and  inaccurate  represen 
tation  of  the  character  of  a  Jewish  money  lender. 

A  long  tenure  of  office  for  teachers  is  well-nigh  indispensable, 
if  a  just  academic  freedom  is  to  be  secured  for  them.  In  the 
absence  of  laws  providing  for  it,  this  long  tenure,  after  suitable 
periods  of  probation,  is  only  to  be  secured  in  this  country  through 
the  voluntary,  habitual  action  of  school  committees  and  boards 
of  trustees.  In  this  respect,  great  improvements  have  been  made 
all  over  the  country  through  the  reforms  in  the  structure  or  com 
position  of  the  committees  which  govern  the  free  schools  and  of 
the  boards  of  trustees  for  institutions  of  higher  education;  but 
much  still  remains  to  be  done.  So  long  as  school  committees 
insist  on  annual  elections  of  all  teachers,  and  boards  of  trustees 


346  CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT 

of  colleges  and  universities  claim  the  right  to  dismiss  at  pleasure 
all  the  officers  of  institutions  in  their  charge,  there  will  be  no 
security  for  the  teachers'  proper  freedom.  We  have,  however, 
learnt  what  the  proper  tenure  for  a  teacher  is.  Teachers  in  every 
grade  of  public  instruction  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  when 
once  their  capacity  and  character  have  been  demonstrated, 
should  hold  their  offices  without  express  limitation  of  time,  and 
should  be  subject  to  removal  only  for  inadequate  performance 
of  duty  or  for  misconduct  publicly  proved.  To  procure  this  ten 
ure  for  teachers,  wherever  it  does  not  now  obtain,  should  be  the 
special  care  of  all  persons  who  believe  that  education  is  the  prime 
interest  of  the  commonwealth,  and  that  teachers  should  enjoy 
perfect  liberty  within  the  limits  of  courtesy  and  of  a  "decent 
respect  for  the  opinions  of  mankind." 

In  the  institutions  of  higher  education  the  board  of  trustees 
is  the  body  on  whose  discretion,  good  feeling,  and  experience  the 
securing  of  academic  freedom  now  depends.  There  are  boards 
which  leave  nothing  to  be  desired  in  these  respects;  but  there  are 
also  numerous  boards  that  have  everything  to  learn  with  regard 
to  academic  freedom.  These  barbarous  boards  exercise  an  ar 
bitrary  power  of  dismissal.  They  exclude  from  the  teachings  of 
the  university  unpopular  or  dangerous  subjects.  In  some  States 
they  even  treat  professors'  positions  as  common  political  spoils; 
and  all  too  frequently,  both  in  state  and  endowed  institutions, 
they  fail  to  treat  the  members  of  the  teaching  staff  with  that 
high  consideration  to  which  their  functions  entitle  them.  In  the 
newer  parts  of  our  country,  it  has  of  course  been  impossible  to 
find  at  short  notice  men  really  prepared  to  discharge  the  difficult 
duties  of  educational  trusteeship;  and  it  will  take  generations 
yet  to  bring  these  communities  in  this  respect  up  to  the  level  of 
the  older  States  and  cities  which  have  had  for  generations  abun 
dant  excellent  material  for  such  boards  of  trustees. 

In  the  institutions  of  higher  education  there  is  usually  found 
an  organized  body  of  the  permanent  teachers  called  a  faculty. 
This  body  exercises  customary  powers  delegated  to  it  by  the 
board  of  trustees;  and  its  determinations  are  ordinarily  made 
by  a  majority  vote  after  more  or  less  discussion.  It  deals  with 
questions  of  general  policy  affecting  both  teachers  and  students, 
and  its  votes  may  sometimes  limit  the  freedom  of  its  own  mem- 


ACADEMIC  FREEDOM  347 

bers.  Such  restrictions,  however,  as  proceed  from  a  faculty  are 
not  likely  to  be  really  oppressive  on  individuals;  for  every  voter 
in  a  faculty  is  likely  to  remember  that  he  himself  may  hereafter  be 
unpleasantly  affected  by  the  same  kind  of  majority  vote  which 
he  is  thinking  of  taking  part  in  against  a  resisting  colleague. 

As  a  rule,  the  faculty  of  a  college,  professional  school,  or  uni 
versity  is  the  real  source  of  educational  policy  and  progress  — 
so  much  so,  that  the  vitality  of  any  institution  may  best  be 
measured  by  the  activity  and  esprit  de  corps  of  its  faculty.  Is  the 
faculty  alert,  progressive,  and  public-spirited,  the  institution 
will  be  active  and  increasingly  serviceable;  is  the  faculty  sluggish, 
uninterested,  and  without  cohesion,  the  institution  will  probably 
be  dull  or  even  retrograde.  If  a  faculty  chooses,  it  can  really  limit 
academic  freedom;  but  it  is  not  likely  to  do  so,  because  its  mem 
bers  will  not  deny  to  others  the  freedom  they  desire  for  them 
selves,  unless,  indeed,  on  rare  occasions,  and  for  short  periods. 
A  faculty  is  much  more  likely  to  limit  unduly  the  academic  free 
dom  of  students  than  of  teachers;  and  yet,  even  in  this  field,  it  is 
harder  and  harder  for  a  lively  and  enterprising  faculty,  represent 
ing  any  adequate  variety  of  university  subjects,  to  restrict  the 
just  freedom  of  students. 

Interference  with  the  academic  freedom  of  an  individual  pro 
fessor  is  in  these  days  more  likely  to  come  from  his  colleagues 
in  the  same  department  than  from  the  faculty  as  a  whole.  Of 
course,  in  those  institutions  which  maintain  only  a  single  teacher 
for  each  subject,  there  is  no  competition  among  teachers  of  the 
same  subject,  and  no  departmental  organization  which  may 
become  formidable  to  the  individual  teacher;  but  many  of  our 
colleges  and  universities  have^now  got  beyond  that  elementary 
stage,  and  have  considerable  groups  of  teachers  working  on  one 
subject,  as  for  instance,  the  classics,  the  modern  languages,  the 
mathematics,  history,  government,  economics,  philosophy,  the 
physical  sciences,  and  the  biological  sciences.  These  groups  of 
teachers,  whatever  called  —  divisions,  departments,  or  schools 
—  have  lately  acquired  in  some  American  universities  very  real 
powers,  and  among  these  powers  is  partial  control  over  the  teach 
ing  of  the  individual  teachers  within  each  group.  The  senior 
professor  of  the  group  sometimes  has  a  formidable  amount  of 
restrictive  power.  This  danger  to  liberty  is  diminished  in  some 


348  CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT 

institutions  by  disregarding  seniority  in  selecting  the  chairmen 
of  departments  or  divisions,  and  making  frequent  changes  of 
chairmen  in  those  departments  which  have  many  members.  The 
points  at  which  danger  to  freedom  exists  are,  —  first,  the  assign 
ment  of  subjects  to  the  younger  members  of  the  department; 
secondly,  the  direct  access  of  advanced  students  to  all  members 
of  the  department;  and  thirdly,  the  exchange  of  subjects  year  by 
year  among  the  various  members,  old  and  young.  At  any  one 
of  these  points  it  is  easy  for  a  department  to  become  despotic, 
particularly  if  there  be  one  dominant  personage  in  it.  The 
exercise  of  power  by  a  division,  department,  or  school  should 
therefore  be  carefully  watched  by  the  president,  the  dean  of 
the  faculty,  or  some  committee  of  the  faculty;  so  that  the  just 
liberty  of  all  members  of  the  department  may  not  be  invaded. 
The  prodigious  stream  of  benefactions  to  institutions  of  edu 
cation  in  the  United  States,  which  has  now  been  flowing  in  in 
creasing  volume  ever  since  the  Civil  War,  has  brought  upon  the 
endowed  institutions  a  new  risk  in  regard  to  academic  freedom. 
So  far  as  state  institutions  are  also  in  a  measure  endowed,  as  is 
the  case  with  the  University  of  California,  the  same  new  risk  is 
incurred  by  them.  The  risk  is  all  the  greater  because  the  living 
benefactor  plays  in  these  days  a  part  even  more  important  than 
that  of  the  dead  benefactor.  Ought  the  opinions  and  wishes  of 
a  living  benefactor  to  influence  the  teaching  in  the  institution 
which  he  endows?  In  general,  the  answer  must  be  in  the  nega 
tive;  because  teaching  which  is  not  believed  to  be  free  is  well- 
nigh  worthless.  It  inevitably  loses  its  intended  effect  on  those 
who  listen  to  it.  It  has  no  effect  even  on  those  who  agree  with, 
or  are  pleased  with,  its  general  tenor.  Nevertheless,  benefactors 
have  certain  rights  in  this  respect.  They  may  fairly  claim  that 
their  benefactions  entitle  their  opinions  and  sentiments  to  be 
treated  with  consideration  and  respect,  and  not  with  contumely 
or  scorn,  in  the  institutions  they  have  endowed,  or  by  the  pro 
fessors  whom  their  gifts  support.  If  their  benefactions  are  for 
general  uses  and  not  for  the  support  of  any  specific  courses  of 
instruction,  they  may  fairly  claim  that  subjects  likely  to  be 
taught  in  a  manner  repulsive  to  them  should  be  omitted  alto 
gether,  unless  some  serious  public  obligation  requires  the  insti 
tution  to  include  them.  The  mere  lapse  of  time  will  probably  free 


ACADEMIC  FREEDOM  349 

an  endowed  institution  from  embarrassments  of  this  nature,  not 
chiefly  because  the  living  benefactor  will  die,  but  because  the 
burning  questions  change  so  frequently  with  the  rapid  progress 
of  society.  Thus,  the  choice  between  Calvinism  and  Channing- 
ism  was  a  burning  question  seventy  years  ago;  but  now  few 
people  take  keen  interest  hi  it.  In  like  manner,  a  few  years  ago 
academic  freedom  was  seriously  impaired  during  the  discussion 
about  the  relations  of  gold  and  silver  to  a  stable  currency;  but 
now  all  heat  has  gone  out  of  that  controversy.  For  two  genera 
tions  protection  and  free  trade  have  been  hot  subjects;  but  in  a 
few  years  they  will  be  stone  cold,  because  the  practice  miscalled 
protection  will  have  become  inapplicable  to  American  industrial 
conditions,  and,  indeed,  manifestly  injurious  to  both  manufac 
tures  and  commerce.  Any  slight  interference  with  academic  free 
dom  which  time  will  certainly  cure  may  be  endured  with  equa 
nimity  for  a  season,  in  consideration  of  great  counter-balancing 
advantages. 

There  is  another  university  authority  who  can,  if  he  choose, 
put  limits  to  academic  freedom  for  a  time  —  the  president.  The 
president  of  moderately  long  service  has  probably  been  con 
cerned  with  the  selection  and  actual  appointment  of  a  large 
majority  of  the  teaching  staff  in  his  institution.  He  has  also 
probably  had  to  do  with  the  step-by-step  promotion  of  nearly 
everybody  connected  with  the  institution.  For  these  reasons  his 
wishes  may  have  undue  weight  with  the  individual  professor  who 
desires  to  make  changes  in  his  subjects  or  methods  of  instruction. 
Some  presidents  are,  therefore,  careful  how  they  bring  any  re 
strictive  pressure  to  bear  on  teachers;  but  others  are  careless  in 
this  respect,  or  deliberately  attempt  to  control  the  nature  or 
quality  of  the  instruction  given  by  individual  teachers,  particu 
larly  in  what  they  regard  as  critical  or  dangerous  subjects.  In 
American  institutions  few  presidents  possess  dangerous  consti 
tutional  or  charter  powers  in  this  respect,  and  none  should  exer 
cise  such  powers.  A  president  may  of  course  remonstrate  with  a 
professor  who  seems  to  him  to  be  exceeding  the  just  limits  of 
academic  freedom,  and  he  may  properly  give  distinct  advice 
when  consulted  beforehand  by  any  member  of  his  staff  on  a 
question  relating  to  academic  freedom;  but  he  should  never 
attempt  to  impose  his  judgment  or  his  will  on  a  teacher. 


350  CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT 

The  real  liberty  of  a  teacher  to  teach  as  he  wishes  to  may  be 
closely  limited  by  the  customs  or  habitual  usages  of  the  institu 
tion  with  which  he  is  connected,  even  more  than  by  the  direct 
action  of  the  constituted  authorities.  Every  earnest  and  pro 
gressive  teacher  desires  to  be  freed,  as  much  as  possible,  from 
routine  details  which  admit  of  little  variety,  and  have  ceased  to 
be  instructive  or  otherwise  beneficial  to  himself.  If  his  habitual 
duties  involve  much  work  of  this  character,  his  own  rate  of  prog 
ress  in  knowledge  and  efficiency  will  be  checked,  and  his  enthu 
siasm  may  be  chilled  as  the  years  go  on.  Routine  is  an  enemy 
to  progress,  and  to  real  mental  liberty.  Again,  in  every  teacher's 
life  there  is  apt  to  be  a  large  element  of  year-by-year  repetition. 
Year  after  year  he  reads  the  same  authors  with  his  classes,  or 
he  deals  with  the  same  subjects  in  his  laboratory  teaching,  and 
even  with  the  same  materials  for  illustrating  his  subjects.  He 
may  be  held  to  an  unreasonable  degree  of  repetition  by  the 
faculty,  by  his  department,  or  by  two  or  three  colleagues  who 
refuse  to  exchange  with  him.  As  years  go  on,  it  is  easier  for  him 
to  follow  a  routine,  or  to  use  again  his  manuscript  notes  grown 
yellow  and  brittle  with  age,  than  to  change  his  habits,  or  to  ven 
ture  into  comparatively  new  fields.  Routine  and  repetition  have 
done  their  work.  They  have  limited  his  freedom,  and  therefore 
his  growth.  In  all  teaching,  at  whatever  grades,  there  must  be 
elements  of  routine  and  repetition,  but  excess  of  these  indispen 
sable  elements  is  to  be  guarded  against  in  every  possible  way, 
both  by  the  teacher  himself  and  by  the  authorities  to  whom  he  is 
responsible;  for  the  teacher's  efficiency  depends  primarily  on  the 
maintenance  of  his  vitality  and  enthusiasm. 

The  prudent  teacher  in  school,  college,  or  university  will  keep 
a  sharp  lookout  on  two  other  risks  to  which  American  teachers 
are  exposed;  they  will  beware  of  doing  too  much  teaching  and  of 
undertaking  too  much  administrative  work.  The  teacher  for  life 
absolutely  needs  to  reserve  time  and  strength  for  continuous 
acquisition  and  development  on  his  own  part.  He  must  not  be 
always  giving  out  information  and  influence.  He  must  have  time 
to  absorb,  to  feed  his  own  growing  powers,  and  to  rekindle  his 
own  enthusiasms  at  the  great  lamps  of  literature  and  science. 
The  university  teacher  ought  to  keep  time  and  strength  to  con 
tribute  a  little  to  the  advancement  of  his  own  subject.  This  he 


ACADEMIC  FREEDOM  351 

cannot  do  if  teaching  or  administration,  or  both,  take  up  all  his 
time  or  all  his  energy.  He  should  therefore  aim  at  regulating  his 
academic  life  in  such  a  way  that  these  higher  purposes  may  be 
fulfilled;  and  this  good  end  in  each  individual  case  should  be  fur 
thered  by  every  academic  authority  and  influence.  These  are 
some  of  the  subtler  elements  in  a  well-composed  academic 
freedom. 

Professors  and  other  teachers,  who  should  be  always  teaching 
or  making  researches,  need  to  be  relatively  free  from  pecuniary 
cares;  so  that  their  minds  may  run  on  their  work.  To  this  end 
they  should  have  fixed  salaries,  and  retiring  allowances;  so  that 
they  may  adjust  their  scale  of  living  to  their  earnings,  and  not 
have  to  think  about  making  money,  or  to  feel  anxiety  about 
disability  or  old  age.  This  detachment  from  ordinary  pecuniary 
or  livelihood  anxieties  is  an  important  element  in  their  mental 
freedom,  and  for  the  right  kind  of  person  a  strong  inducement  to 
the  profession.  The  teacher  ought  always  to  be  a  person  disposed 
to  idealism  and  altruism;  and  he  should  have  abandoned  once 
for  all  the  thought  of  measuring  his  success  by  the  size  of  his 
income. 

In  the  best  managed  universities,  colleges,  and  school  systems 
a  teacher  is  always  free  to  accept  promotion  in  another  institu 
tion  or  school  system,  although  in  most  cases  he  may  properly 
consider  himself  bound  to  finish,  where  he  is,  an  academic  year 
begun.  It  is  inconvenient  for  the  institution  which  the  pro 
moted  teacher  leaves  to  lose  him;  but  in  the  long  run  institutions 
which  are  liberal  and  cordial  in  such  dealings  will  have  a  better 
staff  than  they  would  have  if  they  tried  to  hold  their  successful 
teachers  to  long  contracts  against  the  will  and  to  the  disadvan 
tage  of  those  teachers.  This  feature  of  academic  freedom  has 
far-reaching  good  effects  on  the  profession  and  the  nation,  as 
appears  conspicuously  in  the  educational  history  of  Germany, 
and  the  present  condition  of  the  leading  educational  institutions 
in  the  United  States. 

Finally,  academic  freedom  for  teachers  is  properly  subject  to 
certain  limitations  which  may  best  be  described  as  those  of 
courtesy  and  honor.  They  resemble  the  limitations  which  the 
manners  of  a  gentleman  or  a  lady  impose  on  personal  freedom  in 
social  intercourse.  The  teacher  in  a  school,  or  the  professor  in  a 


352  CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT 

college  or  university,  may  properly  abstain  from  saying  or  doing 
many  things  which  he  would  be  free  to  say  or  do  if  it  were  not  for 
his  official  position.  He  may  properly  feel  that  his  words  and 
acts  must  inevitably  have  an  effect  on  the  reputation  and  influ 
ence  of  the  institution  with  which  he  is  connected.  This  senti 
ment  undoubtedly  qualifies  or  limits  the  freedom  he  would  other 
wise  exercise  and  enjoy.  Many  a  professor  in  this  country  has 
felt  acutely  that  he  was  not  entirely  free  to  publish  in  journals  or 
books  just  what  he  thought  on  controversial  subjects,  if  he  put 
in  connection  with  his  signature  his  official  title  as  professor. 
Doubtless  some  difficult  cases  of  this  sort  arise  in  which  the  rep 
utation  of  an  institution  is  unfavorably  affected  temporarily  by 
the  publications,  or  public  speeches,  of  one  or  more  of  its  officers, 
but  no  satisfactory  defence  against  this  kind  of  injury  has  yet 
been  invented;  since  the  suppression  of  such  publications  does 
infinitely  more  harm  to  the  general  cause  of  education  that  it 
can  do  good  to  the  institution  concerned.  Most  learned  societies 
declare  in  some  conspicuous  place  within  their  customary  pub 
lications  that  the  society  is  in  no  way  responsible  for  the  opinions 
or  conclusions  of  the  individual  contributors;  but  it  is  hardly 
practicable,  even  if  it  were  desirable,  for  a  university,  college, 
theological  seminary,  or  school  of  technology  to  put  a  like  decla 
ration  on  all  the  publications  made  by  their  officers.  The  only 
satisfactory  defence  of  the  institutions  against  the  risks  under 
consideration  is  to  be  found  in  the  considerateness  and  courtesy 
of  the  teachers  concerned,  and  in  their  sense  of  obligation  to  the 
institutions  with  which  they  are  connected,  and  of  the  added 
weight  which  their  official  position  gives  to  their  personal 
opinions. 

When  I  was  first  President  of  Harvard  College  I  got  a  lesson 
on  this  subject  from  one  of  the  most  respected  of  the  Harvard 
professors  of  that  day.  He  had  recently  made  to  the  American 
Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences  a  communication  which  dealt  in  a 
novel  way  with  one  particular  aspect  of  the  financial  credit  of 
the  United  States;  and  this  communication  had  been  warmly 
attacked  by  several  of  his  fellows  in  the  Academy,  including  some 
influential  Boston  business  men.  He  was  in  the  act,  however,  of 
issuing  a  manual  for  schools  and  colleges,  in  which  he  had  incor 
porated  the  questionable  doctrine,  and  on  the  title-page  of  this 


ACADEMIC  FREEDOM  353 

book  he  had  put  under  his  name  his  professorial  title  in  Harvard 
University.  As  the  time  approached  for  publishing  the  volume 
—  the  plates  of  which  he  owned  —  his  mind  misgave  him  with 
regard  to  the  propriety  of  proclaiming  this  unusual  and  con 
troverted  doctrine  in  his  capacity  as  professor  in  Harvard  Uni 
versity,  and  he  therefore  asked  me,  as  President,  what  the  Presi 
dent  and  Fellows  of  Harvard  College  would  think  on  that  point. 
I  was  obliged  to  tell  him  that  the  President  and  Fellows  would 
prefer  to  have  that  doctrine  omitted  from  the  book,  unless,  in 
deed,  he  were  willing  to  omit  from  the  title-page  his  own  official 
title  as  a  Harvard  professor.  The  result  was  that  the  trouble 
some  chapter  was  omitted;  but  the  professor  lost  all  interest  in 
his  entire  manual,  and  insisted  on  selling  the  plates  to  his  pub- 
Usher,  and  foregoing  his  royalty  on  the  sales  of  the  book.  The 
incident  taught  me  that  the  best  defence  of  an  institution  against 
abuses  of  academic  freedom  was  to  be  found  hi  the  sense  of  duty 
and  honor  which  obtains  among  its  officers. 

FREEDOM  FOR   STUDENTS 

The  college  student  coming  from  a  good  secondary  school  has 
probably  had  some  small  amount  of  choice  among  the  subjects 
provided  at  his  school  towards  admission  to  college.  He  may 
arrive  at  his  college  with  more  Latin  and  Greek  and  less  modern 
languages,  or  the  reverse.  He  may  offer  himself  in  several  sci 
ences,  or  in  not  more  than  one.  His  choice  in  this  respect  may 
have  been  closely  limited,  and  yet  not  without  serious  effects  on 
his  subsequent  career.  When  he  reaches  his  college,  normally  at 
eighteen  or  nineteen  years  of  age,  he  ought  to  find  at  once  a  great 
enlargement  of  his  freedom  of  choice  among  studies.  This  is  for 
the  student  the  first  element  in  a  just  academic  freedom.  By  close 
attention  to  his  own  individual  problem,  and  to  his  own  antece 
dents,  and  with  a  little  assistance  from  an  expert  in  the  list  of 
courses  and  the  schedule  of  hours,  he  will  have  no  difficulty  in 
finding  the  courses  most  suitable  for  himself.  In  the  freest  elec 
tive  system  there  are  plain  fences  marking  out  the  feasible  tracks. 
These  fences  are  in  most  cases  the  natural  and  inevitable  se 
quences  of  the  courses  offered  in  the  several  subjects  of  instruc 
tion.  A  few  may  be  arbitrary  and  artificial,  such  restrictions 
being  probably  the  results  of  inadequate  resources  in  the  college 


354  CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT 

itself,  or  of  some  policy  inconsistent  with  its  general  regime  of 
liberty.  The  choice  of  studies  made  in  any  individual  case  may 
be  very  wisely  modified,  or  fundamentally  changed,  by  the  stu 
dent's  choice  of  teachers.  This  choice  among  teachers  is  a  very 
valuable  element  in  academic  freedom  for  the  student.  The 
newcomer  at  a  college  may  not  possess  the  information  needed 
to  enable  him  to  exercise  this  freedom;  but  during  the  first  half- 
year  or  quarter  of  residence  most  students  can  acquire  sufficient 
information  about  the  different  teachers  of  the  subjects  which 
interest  them  to  enable  them  to  exercise  discreetly  this  freedom  of 
choice  among  teachers.  Having  found  his  best  teacher,  the  stu 
dent  ought  to  find  himself  free  to  follow  him  for  several  years. 
Unfortunately  faculties  are  more  likely  to  interfere  with  this  par 
ticular  liberty  than  with  any  other,  as  for  instance  by  enacting 
that  philosophy,  or  economics,  or  political  science  shall  not  be 
accessible  to  any  student  before  the  Sophomore  year. 

Under  a  broad  elective  system  in  the  arts  and  sciences  the 
students  will  always  make  many  choices  of  single  courses  which 
interest  them,  or  look  to  them  profitable;  but  there  will  also  be  a 
great  variety  of  voluntary  groupings  of  courses,  and  the  liberty 
to  make  an  appropriate  grouping  is  a  very  important  part  of 
academic  freedom  for  the  student.  Such  groupings  are  often 
determined  by  the  student's  foreknowledge  of  his  professional 
career,  or  if  this  knowledge  is  lacking,  by  his  own.  selection  of 
kindred  subjects,  all  of  which  commend  themselves  to  his  taste 
or  his  judgment.  This  liberty  to  make  groupings,  each  one  for 
himself,  is  another  important  element  in  a  just  academic  free 
dom.  Almost  all  students  who  decide  on  their  profession  early 
in  their  college  course  make  groupings  which  will  further  them 
in  their  professional  career,  and  in  their  preparation  therefor; 
and  for  the  student  there  is  no  safer  principle  of  selection  among 
appropriate  college  subjects.  A  student  who  lacks  this  clear  guid 
ance  may  most  safely  depend  for  guidance  in  the  choice  of  his 
studies  on  the  tastes  and  capacities  of  which  he  is  conscious. 
Among  the  multitude  of  culture  courses  which  a  large  college 
offers,  the  safest  selection  for  the  individual  student  is  that  of 
courses  in  which  he  has  the  capacity  to  achieve  something  con 
siderable.  Interest  in  a  subject  is  an  indication  of  fitness  for  its 
study,  or,  in  other  words,  a  student  is  much  more  likely  to  sue- 


ACADEMIC  FREEDOM  355 

ceed  in  a  subject  which  interests  him  strongly  than  hi  a  subject 
which  does  not.  Achievement  and  gain  in  power  are  the  true 
rewards  of  persistent  exertion,  and  the  best  spurs  to  further  ef 
fort.  The  college  student  ought  to  be  free  to  specialize  early  in 
his  course,  or  not  to  specialize  at  all;  to  make  his  education  turn 
on  languages,  mathematics,  history,  science,  or  philosophy  — 
for  example  —  or  on  any  mixture  of  these  great  subjects. 

The  college  student  may  reasonably  expect  to  find  himself 
free  from  attempts  to  impose  opinions  on  him.  These  attempts 
may  be  made  by  his  teachers,  or  by  intimate  comrades,  or  by 
groups  of  companions  and  friends,  or  by  mass-meetings.  He  has 
a  right  in  these  days  to  be  free  from  the  imposition  of  opinions, 
whether  attempted  by  elders  or  associates,  by  one  individual  or 
a  multitude.  He  has  also  a  right  to  be  free  from  all  inducements 
to  cant,  hypocrisy,  or  conformity.  On  this  account,  voluntary 
attendance  at  all  religious  exercises  is  a  valuable  element  hi  aca 
demic  freedom.  No  student  ought  to  be  able  to  suppose  that  he 
will  gam  anything  towards  high  rank  as  a  scholar,  or  social  stand 
ing,  or  popularity  among  his  fellows  by  any  religious  observance 
or  affiliation  whatsoever.  A  mercenary  or  profit-seeking  spirit 
in  religious  practices  is  very  injurious  to  young  people,  and  is 
peculiarly  repulsive  hi  them. 

The  student  who  needs  pecuniary  aid  in  college,  or  desires 
employment  in  which  he  can  partly  earn  his  livelihood,  ought  to 
find  an  absolutely  free  competition  for  such  assistance  on  merit 
only,  without  regard  to  any  opinions  or  practices  of  his.  It  is 
highly  desirable  that  college  students  should  be  free  from  care 
for  their  livelihood  during  the  whole  period  of  education,  accept 
ing  support  from  their  parents  or  other  loving  friends.  To  give 
this  support  is  the  precious  privilege  of  parents,  to  accept  it  the 
precious  privilege  of  children.  Nevertheless,  it  is  one  of  the  best 
results  of  democracy  that  young  men  of  capacity  and  character 
find  it  possible  to  obtain  a  prolonged  education  for  the  profes 
sions  or  for  business,  although  they  are  obliged  to  support  them 
selves  wholly  or  in  part  during  the  long  period  of  strenuous  study. 
Endowments,  the  bounty  of  the  state,  or  the  facilities  for  obtain 
ing  appropriate  employment  which  colleges  now  provide,  pro 
cure  this  freedom  for  thousands  of  young  Americans  every  year. 
The  young  men  thus  aided  to  attain  a  larger  and  freer  career 


356  CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT 

should  invariably  feel  bound  in  after  life  to  pass  on  and  amplify 
the  privilege  they  enjoyed. 

1  Finally,  the  student  ought  to  find  himself  free  to  determine 
the  method  of  his  daily  Me  with  no  more  restrictions  than  the 
habits  and  customs  of  civilized  society  necessarily  impose.  His 
problem  will  be  to  regulate  his  own  Me  wisely  by  self-control 
in  liberty.  Up  to  his  entrance  to  college  his  mode  of  life  has  prob 
ably  been  regulated  for  him  by  home  rules,  or  school  rules;  and 
he  has  been  almost  constantly  under  the  observation  of  parents, 
or  teachers,  or  both.  Now,  at  college,  he  should  be  free.  He  will 
probably  make  some  mistakes,  at  first,  about  eating  and  drink 
ing,  sleeping,  taking  exercise,  arranging  his  hours  for  work  and 
for  play,  and  using  his  time;  but  his  mistakes  will  not  be  fatal  or 
beyond  remedy,  and  he  will  form  habits  based  on  his  own  ob 
servation  and  experience  and  his  own  volitions.  These  are  the 
habits  that  prove  trustworthy  in  adult  life.  As  in  the  outer  world, 
so  in  the  comparatively  sheltered  college  world,  freedom  is  dan 
gerous  for  the  infirm  of  purpose,  and  destructive  for  the  vicious; 
but  it  is  the  only  atmosphere  in  which  the  well-disposed  and 
resolute  can  develop  their  strength.  Under  any  college  regime, 
whether  liberal  or  authoritative,  a  very  valuable  though  danger 
ous  part  of  the  student's  freedom  is  his  freedom  to  choose  his 
comrades,  or  habitual  associates.  That  choice  will  show  in  every 
individual  case  whether  the  young  man  possesses  moral  principle 
and  firmness  of  character  or  not.  If  the  choice  is  good,  he  will 
be  safe  in  liberty;  'it  the  choice  is  bad,  he  will  be  unsafe  under 
any  regime.  The  student  ought  to  choose  his  own  comrades  de 
liberately,  and  after  some  study  of  the  accessible  variety  of  asso 
ciates.  To  be  forced  to  accept  an  unknown  group  of  permanent 
associates  within  three  weeks  of  entering  college  is  an  unfortunate 
limitation  of  academic  freedom. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  as  if  academic  freedom  were  one  thing 
for  teachers  and  another  thing  for  students;  and,  indeed,  the 
aspects  and  results  of  that  freedom  for  the  mature  men  whose 
life  work  is  study  and  teaching,  and  for  the  youth  who  are  only 
beginners  in  the  intellectual  life,  are  somewhat  different.  Never 
theless,  in  a  college  or  university  there  is  a  perfect  solidarity  of 
interests  between  teachers  and  taught  in  respect  to  freedom.  A 
teacher  who  is  not  supposed  to  be  free  never  commands  the 


ACADEMIC  FREEDOM,  357 

respect  or  personal  loyalty  of  competent  students,  and  students 
who  are  driven  to  a  teacher  are  never  welcome,  and  can  neither 
impart  nor  imbibe  enthusiasm. 

The  real  success  of  a  college  or  university  teacher  in  the  long 
run  depends  on  his  training  up  a  few  sincere  and  devoted  disci 
ples.  To  this  process,  freedom  on  both  sides  is  essential.  The 
student  must  be  free  to  choose  the  same  teacher  for  several  years, 
and  the  teacher  to  hold  the  same  student.  There  must  be  a  vol 
untary  cooperation  of  tastes,  capacities,  and  wills  for  years.  As 
a  rule,  enduring  influence  is  won  only  by  a  teacher  who  thus  brings 
up  a  few  congenial,  cooperative  disciples  capable  of  carrying  on 
and  developing  their  master's  work.  The  duration  of  the  mas 
ter's  influence  depends  on  the  capacity  of  his  disciples  to  go  be 
yond  him,  and  develop  his  ideas  under  new  conditions;  and  for 
this  development  they  in  their  turn  will  need  a  genuine  freedom 
for  themselves,  and  for  their  students.  Such  is  the  rapid  prog 
ress  of  science,  letters,  and  art  in  these  days  that  the  old  ideas 
can  only  live  as  they  are  transmuted  into  the  new;  but  for  the 
just  development  of  the  new  out  of  the  old,  freedom  is  indispen 
sable.  All  truth-seeking  needs  freedom,  and  in  a  university 
teachers  and  taught  ought  to  be  constantly  seeking  truth  to 
gether.  Even  partial  truth  makes  free;  and  every  sincere  searcher 
for  the  next  glimpse  of  truth  beyond  the  present  limits  of  knowl 
edge  needs  not  only  a  perfect  candor  in  his  own  soul,  but  freedom 
from  all  artificial  external  restraints  on  the  flights  of  his  intelli 
gence  and  good  will. 

UNIVERSITY   GOVERNMENT  AS  A   TYPE 

The  government  of  a  good  college  or  university  in  the  United 
States,  which  is  free  from  denominational  or  political  control, 
foretells  the  type  of  the  best  ultimate  forms  of  human  govern 
ment.  It  is  a  government  in  which  there  is  no  use  of  force.  There 
is  some  police  inspection,  and  a  constant  watchfulness  against 
disease,  fire,  noise,  and  similar  evils,  but  no  prison,  no  physical 
punishment,  the  least  possible  interference  with  the  personal 
conduct  of  the  governed,  and  a  generous  amount  of  good  will 
between  all  members  of  the  community.  The  citizens,  or  con 
stituency,  of  this  government  are  selected  persons  as  regards 
intelligence,  good  will,  and  cooperative  purpose.  Exile  from  the 


358  CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT 

community  is  the  sole  penalty  for  misconduct,  inefficiency,  or 
unworthiness.  The  government  is  not  arbitrary,  and  yet  it  pos 
sesses  large  elements  of  discretion.  It  habitually  acts  under  rules 
and  usages,  yet  it  is  progressive;  it  does  not  permit  a  perverse 
individual  to  injure  the  main  body,  but  its  dealings  with  the  in 
dividual  are  always  in  the  direction  of  reformation,  education, 
and  recovery  from  downfall,  and  exile  is  never  resorted  to  until 
many  efforts  at  recovery  and  reformation  have  failed.  Ven 
geance  on  the  sinner,  and  the  satisfaction  of  justice  by  punish 
ment,  are  absolutely  excluded  from  its  discipline,  as  in  the  first 
place  unworthy  of  any  intelligent  ruler  or  governor,  and  also  as 
completely  ineffective  towards  either  individual  or  community 
improvement.  There  are  no  elective  bodies  analogous  to  Senate 
and  House  of  Representatives,  and  yet  there  are  legislative 
bodies  and  an  executive.  Long  tenure,  and  life  office  play  a  great 
part  in  university  organization,  and  as  a  rule  there  is  no  jealousy 
or  distrust  of  long-service  executives,  provided  they  are  consid 
erate  and  fair.  On  the  contrary,  in  universities  the  governed 
generally  exhibit  a  decided  preference  for  an  experienced  execu 
tive  of  proved  capacity,  and  a  dislike  for  changes  in  executive 
departments. 

The  principle  of  authority  is  very  little  applied  in  good  univer 
sity  government.  Respect  is  paid  to  age,  if  it  remains  vital,  and 
to  experience,  especially  to  intensive  experience;  but  mere  sen 
iority  counts  for  very  little,  and  an  administrator's  influence  is 
supported  chiefly  on  his  persuasiveness,  or  power  of  discerning  a 
good  reason  for  a  proposed  action  and  then  stating  it  convinc 
ingly. 

In  the  government  of  the  American  universities,  sentiments 
have  a  large  place,  as  indeed  they  should  have  in  all  government. 
Among  these  sentiments  are  a  strong  love  for  the  site  and  sur 
roundings  of  the  university  —  an  affectionate  memory  for  the 
fields  and  hills,  the  streams  or  lakes  within  sight  of  which  years 
of  rapid  intellectual  and  spiritual  growth  were  passed;  down 
right  affection  for  teachers  who  greatly  stimulated  the  intellec 
tual  life  of  their  students;  and  among  the  members  of  the  uni 
versity  staff  itself,  admiration  and  affection  for  certain  colleagues 
whose  traits  of  character,  wit,  or  charming  personal  idiosyncra 
sies  especially  commend  them  to  their  brethren.  Occasionally  a 


ACADEMIC  FREEDOM  359 

college  administrator  who  is  also  a  preacher  from  pulpit  or  plat 
form  wins  for  the  time  being  an  extraordinary  influence  over  large 
numbers  of  young  men  by  the  purity  and  force  of  his  charac 
ter,  and  the  high  spirit  of  his  instruction  and  exhortation.  These 
sentiments,  like  all  the  higher  loves,  grow  up  in  a  freedom  which 
knows  no  admixture  of  fear,  compulsion,  or  domination.  They  are 
all  noble,  refined,  and  inspiring  sentiments.  To  develop  them  in 
the  highest  degree  is  one  of  the  chief  objects  of  academic  freedom. 

A  university  should  be  entirely  free  from  the  highly  restrictive 
bonds  described  in  the  words  caste,  class,  race,  sect,  and  party. 
In  its  best  form  it  already  is  so.  These  formidable  restrictions  on 
individual  liberty  should  play  no  part  in  its  organization  or  its 
discipline.  The  world  has  had  quite  enough  of  these  ancient 
means  of  dividing  mankind  into  antagonistic  sections.  Every 
university  should  exert  a  strong  unifying  interest  in  these  re 
spects. 

I  have  said  that  the  university  form  of  government  is  a  proph 
ecy.  It  really  foretells  the  ultimate  form  of  all  good  government 
among  men  —  a  government  based  on  cooperative  intelligence, 
almost  universal  good  will,  and  noble  loves.  Its  leaders  are  of 
a  new  sort  which  deserves  study. 

A  modern  university,  being  a  voluntary  cooperative  asso 
ciation  of  highly  individualistic  persons  for  teaching  and  for 
advancing  knowledge,  is  thoroughly  democratic  in  spirit,  and 
everywhere  its  objects  are  to  train  productive  mental  power  in 
the  young,  to  store  such  power  in  a  selected  group  from  the  next 
older  generation,  and  to  apply  this  stored  power  to  the  advance 
ment  of  knowledge.  This  peculiar  kind  of  democratic  associa 
tion  needs  leaders  or  managers;  but  the  work  of  a  university  is 
so  different  from  ordinary  governmental  and  industrial  work, 
that  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  the  university  leader  or 
manager  is  a  different  kind  of  leader  from  that  common  in  gov 
ernments  and  industries.  It  is  an  interesting  question,  therefore, 
what  sort  of  leadership  a  university  needs;  what  contribution 
to  academic  freedom  the  right  sort  of  university  leader  makes; 
and  what  sort  of  freedom  he  needs  for  himself. 

University  administration  is  usually,  and  in  chief  part,  ad 
ministration  by  a  selected  expert  who  has  had  opportunity  to 
prove  his  capacity.  He  ought  also  to  be  an  advanced  student  in 


360  CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT 

some  field  of  knowledge  —  historical,  economic,  linguistic,  sci 
entific,  or  artistic,  it  matters  not  which  —  and  a  student  who 
has  learnt  by  experience  what  research  or  scholarly  productive 
ness  is  and  implies.  Like  the-caj>tain  of  industry,  or  the  political 
ruler,  he  must  have  skill,  capacity,  and  knowledge;  must  be  in 
ventive  and  constructive  in  his  thinking;  and  must  welcome  care 
and  responsibility.  His  inducements  to  laborious  and  responsible 
service  are,  however,  different  from  those  which  are  effective 
with  other  sorts  of  leaders.  A  high  salary,  or  the  prospect  of  lux 
ury  for  himself  and  his  family,  will  not  tempt  him.  These  in 
ducements  will  not  draw  the  right  kind  of  man  into  university 
administration  any  more  than  into  teaching  or  research.  He 
cannot  be  induced  to  do  his  best  work  by  offering  him  any  money 
prize,  and  he  will  manifest  no  desire  whatever  for  arbitrary 
power  over  masses  of  human  beings,  or  for  what  is  ordinarily 
called  fame  or  glory.  The  effective  inducements  will  be  the  pros 
pect  of  eminent  usefulness,  public  consideration,  the  provision 
of  all  real  facilities  for  his  work,  enough  relief  from  pecuniary 
cares  to  leave  his  mind  free  for  invention  and  forelooking,  long 
tenure,  and  income  enough  to  secure  healthy  recreations.  He 
will  not  wish  to  receive  a  salary  so  high  as  to  distinguish  him 
widely  from  his  colleagues  the  professors,  except  so  far  as  the 
proper  discharge  of  his  functions  involves  him  in  expenditures 
from  which  they  are  exempt.  He  will  want  to  work  with  a  group 
of  associates  whose  pecuniary  recompense  and  prospects  are 
not  very  unlike  his  own. 

This  educational  expert  will  set  a  high  value  on  freedom 
for  himself.  He  will  hope  that  trustees,  faculties,  alumni,  and 
the  supporting  public  will  permit  him  to  carry  out  his  own  plans 
and  previsions,  or  those  which  he  espouses.  He  will  hope  that  the 
responsibility  he  carries  will  entitle  him  to  a  certain  deference 
for  his  judgments  from  his  colleagues  and  the  academic  bodies. 
In  short,  a  just  academic  freedom  for  the  head  of  a  university  is 
more  important  than  for  any  other  person  or  group  of  persons 
connected  with  the  university,  for  the  reason  that  in  education, 
as  in  every  other  function  of  democratic  government,  and  every 
branch  of  the  national  industries,  the  problem  how  to  create 
and  develop  real  leadership  is  the  most  serious  problem  which 
confronts  democratic  society. 


ACADEMIC  FREEDOM  361 

In  all  fields,  democracy  needs  to  develop  leaders  of  high  in 
ventive  capacity,  strong  initiative,  and  genius  for  cooperative 
government,  who  will  put  forth  their  utmost  powers,  not  for 
pecuniary  reward,  or  for  the  love  of  domination,  but  for  the  joy 
of  achievement  and  the  continuous  mounting  satisfaction  of  ren 
dering  good  service.  This  is  just  the  kind  of  leader  that  democ 
racy  ought  to  produce  for  highly  organized  industries  and  for 
public  service.  The  military  commander  is  necessarily  an  auto 
crat;  the  hereditary  ruler  may  be  either  a  despot  or  a  figurehead; 
the  present  type  of  industrial  captain  is  too  often  governed  by 
motives  and  pursues  ends  which  are  neither  altruistic  nor  ideal 
istic.  None  of  these  types  is  good  for  the  democratic  leader 
of  the  future,  whether  he  is  to  serve  in  some  great  industry,  in 
government,  or  in  a  university.  At  this  moment  the  university 
administrator  makes  the  best  use  now  made  of  the  powers  of 
individualism  on  one  hand,  and  of  collectivism  on  the  other, 
and  understands  better  than  any  other  leader  in  the  world  that 
in  order  to  have  successful  cooperative  action  on  the  part  of 
thousands  of  human  beings,  special  emphasis  must  be  laid  on 
brotherhood  in  that  admirable  trinity  —  freedom,  equality, 
and  brotherhood. 

The  American  university  gives  an  effective  demonstration  of 
the  good  results  of  the  voluntary  association  in  common  work 
of  many  independent  and  unlike  individuals  possessing  the  maxi 
mum  of  good  will;  and  academic  freedom  is,  therefore,  a  good 
type  of  the  considerate,  humane  freedom  which  will  ultimately 
become  universal. 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY 

BY  ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART 
Delivered  before  the  Delta  of  Massachusetts,  at  Tufts  College,  June  18,  1907. 

THIS  is  the  era  of  criticism,  in  which  people  read  novels,  not 
to  find  out  how  the  heroine  is  rescued,  but  to  analyze  the  rela 
tive  influences  of  Anthony  Trollope  and  Balzac  on  the  mind  of 
the  author.  But  what  have  critics  to  do  with  American  democ 
racy,  so  big,  so  lusty,  so  confident,  so  thick-skinned  against  the 
arrows  of  the  theorists?  Why  should  prophets  lift  their  voices 
in  a  "Woe  unto  them  that  are  at  ease  in  Zion,"  when  ease  is  vis 
ibly  the  last  thing  that  Americans  seek  or  comprehend?  Surely 
it  was  of  the  democracy  that  Job's  friend  spoke:  "Canst  thou 
draw  out  Leviathan  with  a  hook?  .  .  .  When  he  raiseth  up  him 
self  the  mighty  are  afraid.  .  .  .  He  beholdeth  all  high  things :  he 
is  a  king  over  all  the  children  of  pride." 

Possibly  Leviathan  is  willing  to  be  told  of  his  strength  and 
sleekness;  and  American  democracy  has  in  many  respects  de 
veloped,  justified,  and  passed  on  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  ideals 
of  great  moment.  The  first  is  the  power  of  man  over  nature. 
The  same  immense  courage  and  imagination  which  caused  the 
early  settlers  to  assail  the  wilderness  has  carried  their  children 
all  the  way  to  the  point  where  they  have  occupied  almost  all 
the  tillable  land,  and  are  now  imprisoning  the  mountain  rivers 
to  widen  the  area  of  settlement.  Without  cessation,  with  un 
stinting  labor  and  sacrifice,  the  American  has  taught  the  world 
a  lesson  in  subduing  a  continent;  and  to  the  whole  people  has 
been  communicated  the  eager,  restless,  and  somewhat  material 
istic  characteristics  of  the  West. 

As  a  part  of  this  process  the  Americans  have  established  once 
for  all  the  possibility  of  a  democracy  in  an  area  immense  and 
various.  The  Roman  Republic  was  but  the  centre  of  a  spider 
web;  the  mediaeval  type  of  a  republic  was  a  walled  city;  the 
Federal  Union  covers  half  a  continent,  and  includes  communi 
ties  of  many  kinds,  fastened  together  by  bands  of  steel.  The 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY  363 

railroad  section  hand,  the  fireman  on  a  river  steamer,  the  for 
eign-born  laborer  hewing  a  tunnel  through  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains,  have  been  helping  to  weld  the  Republic  together,  and  thus 
to  transfer  popular  government  to  children's  children. 

Nor  has  this  been  the  work  of  a  single  race.  Every  nation  of 
Europe  and  some  of  other  continents  have  sent  their  sons,  who 
after  a  few  years  are  become  all  Americans.  That  a  conquering 
race  should  force  its  civilization  upon  the  conquered  is  familiar 
in  history;  but  our  modern  Voelkerwanderung  melts  away  into 
the  ideals,  the  standards,  and  the  institutions  of  the  English 
race  that  they  find  here. 

National  ideals  have  not  only  fused  foreign  races,  they  have 
interfused  the  English  strain.  With  all  the  divergences  of  East 
from  West,  of  North  from  South,  the  American  is  recognized 
as  a  type;  and  there  is  substantially  one  American  civilization. 
In  the  multitude  of  churches,  one  Christianity;  in  the  variety 
of  peoples,  one  national  language;  with  schools  of  every  sort,  a 
common  principle  of  education.  Throughout  the  United  States, 
women  are  admitted  to  a  social  and  economic  liberty  hardly 
to  be  matched  anywhere  in  the  world.  There  is  a  common  hope 
fulness,  a  common  patience  with  evils  against  which  a  virile 
people  ought  to  strive;  a  common  fatalistic  expectation  that 
things  will  come  about,  whether  preparations  are  made  before 
hand  or  not;  from  end  to  end  of  the  country,  there  is  almost  a 
mournful  likeness  of  political  institutions,  everywhere  a  gov 
ernor,  everywhere  a  legislature  of  two  houses,  everywhere  the 
same  kind  of  courts:  the  most  ingenious  people  in  the  world 
were  long  the  least  eager  to  try  experiments  in  governing. 

Within  this  society  of  uniform  aims,  there  is  a  nearer  ap 
proach  to  a  common  understanding  of  the  classes  than  in  other 
countries.  WTages  are  high,  and  the  best-paid  workmen  are 
materially  better  off  than  many  of  the  professional  class.  It  is 
easy  to  make  money  and  to  lose  it,  so  that  in  the  country,  except 
for  the  exotic  settlements  of  wealthy  persons,  people  hardly 
understand  class  distinctions.  They  are  sharp  enough  in  the 
larger  communities,  where  race  is  set  off  from  race :  the  wealthy 
mill  owner  from  the  doctor  and  lawyer;  the  professional  classes 
holding  aloof  from  the  mill  bosses  and  tradesmen;  these  business 
men  out  of  social  relation  with  the  mill  hands;  and  the  toilers 


364  ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART 

setting  up  their  own  social  divergences  among  themselves.  Yet 
these  bounds  are  not  hard  and  fast:  the  son  of  a  laborer  may  go 
to  college  and  continue  thenceforth  among  professional  men, 
and  the  son  of  the  mill  owner  may  lose  his  money  and  social 
standing  together.  The  one  rigid  social  exclusion  is  that  of  the 
negroes,  who  are  in  many  parts  of  the  country  excluded  from 
what  considers  itself  society.  Many  groups  of  foreigners  do  not 
learn  English,  but  their  children  commonly  seek  to  identify 
themselves  with  America. 

The  greatest  success  of  democracy  has  been  in  establishing 
as  an  unquestioned  national  ideal  the  doctrine  of  fundamental 
rights.  The  common  man  does  not  stop  to  consider  whether 
these  are  natural  rights,  or  civil  rights  resulting  from  compact. 
He  only  knows  that  he  and  his  neighbors  have  them,  and  that  the 
frame  of  government  must  be  built  upon  them:  hence  he  intui 
tively  insists  on  the  ideal  that  public  authority  should  be  limited; 
that  the  effective  place  of  limitation  is  in  the  state  and  federal 
constitutions;  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  courts  to  keep  the 
other  departments  of  government  within  these  constitutional 
limitations.  The  ideal  of  indefeasible  rights  automatically  carries 
with  it  the  ideal  of  equality;  and  behind  it  a  conception  of  justice 
as  the  foundation  of  human  relations.  And  down  to  the  bottom 
of  the  whole  mass  of  society  penetrates  the  thought  that  justice 
must  not  be  denied  to  one  individual  or  class,  lest  part  of  its  pro 
tection  be  taken  from  some  other  person  or  group. 

The  might  and  majesty  of  government  seems  opposed  to  the 
ideal  of  natural  right,  the  more  so  in  a  country  like  the  United 
States,  where  government  is  appealed  to  for  many  kinds  of  ser 
vice;  but  the  conflict  between  the  mass  and  the  many,  between 
the  collective  and  the  individualistic,  is  softened  by  the  ideal  of 
representation.  The  representative  is  hedged  about  with  "thou 
shalt  nots."  The  national  ideal  of  popular  government  in  the 
United  States  is  how  to  give  power  while  withholding  it;  how  to 
elect  representatives  who  shall  still  be  responsible  to  their  constit 
uents;  how  to  select  lawmakers  and  then  to  pass  laws  over  their 
heads  by  the  referendum;  how  to  choose  legislators  by  majority 
vote  and  yet  make  them  regardful  of  the  rights  of  the  minority. 
To  secure  responsibility  is  the  most  difficult  task  in  popular 
government;  and  the  most  that  can  be  said  is  that  somehow, 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY  365 

notwithstanding  party  spirit  and  party  control,  the  people  in 
the  long  run  usually  obtain  through  their  representatives  what 
they  think  essential  for  their  welfare. 

The  history  of  the  United  States  abounds  in  proofs  that  democ 
racy  has  made  some  lamentable  failures;  from  John  Adams's 
Discourses  on  Davila,  published  before  the  Federal  Consti 
tution  was  adopted,  all  the  way  to  the  discouraged  generaliza 
tions  of  Lecky,  we  have  heard  of  democracy's  changeableness; 
of  its  contempt  for  tradition  and  experience;  of  its  impatience  of 
authority;  of  its  love  of  the  flatteries  of  the  common  demagogue; 
of  its  dislike  of  really  great  characters;  of  its  effort  to  pull  every 
thing  down  to  its  own  level.  One  only  needs  to  read  the  daily 
newspapers,  to  study  the  cartoons  and  comic  Sunday  supple 
ments,  in  order  to  realize  the  materialistic  and  commonplace  side 
of  American  society.  "It  seems,  at  first  sight,  as  if  all  the  minds 
of  the  Americans  were  formed  on  one  model,  so  accurately  do 
they  correspond  in  their  manner  of  judging,"  said  Tocqueville 
in  his  Democracy  in  America  in  1835.  This  lack  of  the  sense  of 
relief,  of  the  distinction  between  the  high  and  the  low,  is  shown 
hi  the  tawdriness  of  the  popular  dramatic  shows;  in  the  ugliness 
of  most  American  cities;  in  such  incredible  public  buildings  as 
the  old  Chicago  City  Hall,  the  Cleveland  Soldiers'  Monument, 
the  Boston  County  Court-House.  Compare,  for  instance,  the 
city  of  Memphis  with  the  city  of  Geneva,  in  the  laying-out  of 
the  highways,  the  taste  of  private  residences,  the  architecture 
of  business  and  public  buildings;  yet  Memphis  is  the  wealthier 
city  of  the  two. 

The  untidiness  of  the  outward  works  of  man  reflects  the  con 
fusion  and  the  dirt  of  many  phases  of  American  government. 
Why  should  a  rich  and  inventive  people  endure  rifts  both  in  the 
street  pavements  and  in  the  public  conscience?  Why  should  city 
governments  be  so  much  less  profitable  from  the  business  point 
of  view  to  their  stockholders,  the  public,  than  railroads  and 
insurance  companies?  Why  should  people  put  up  with  rapid 
transit  commissions  that  are  ten  years  in  coming  to  a  decision, 
and  with  courts  which  allow  a  dozen  appeals  in  the  same  case? 
Why  should  the  public  service,  in  efficiency,  in  interest  in  its 
performance,  be  so  far  below  the  usual  standards  for  the  manage- 


366  ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART 

ment  of  corporations?  Perhaps  one  explanation  is  the  national 
tradition  that  the  affairs  of  government  can  be  directed  by  any 
intelligent  man,  which  is  the  transfer  of  the  ideals  of  the  town 
meeting  and  the  county  convention  to  the  affairs  of  a  nation. 
To  admit  that  lifelong  experience  makes  a  man  a  better  legisla 
tor  or  governor  seems  to  be  a  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  equality. 
Therefore  American  democracy  is  fairly  open  to  the  charge  of 
an  indulgence  of,  if  not  a  preference  for,  mediocre  men  in  public 
life.  There  are  United  States  Senators,  members  of  the  only 
body  of  the  kind  where  rotation  in  office  does  not  yet  prevail, 
who  remain  there  for  years  without  offering  a  public  bill,  mak 
ing  a  striking  speech,  or  figuring  in  any  way  except  as  a  party 
counter  when  the  vote  comes  to  be  taken.  In  cities  and  in 
States,  such  departments  of  public  works  as  street  building, 
street  cleaning,  and  waterworks  are  controlled  by  a  succession 
of  laymen,  who  may  or  may  not  take  the  opinion  of  their  engi 
neers.  Contempt  of  the  expert,  confidence  in  the  untried,  or 
rather  willingness  for  party  advantage  to  put  the  lesser  man  in 
the  larger  place,  are  fairly  chargeable  to  democracy. 

The  larger  the  extent  of  government,  the  more  opportunity 
for  its  falling  into  the  hands  of  party  men,  who  may  not  be  con 
tent  with  simple  inefficiency;  but  who  carry  on  the  public  ser 
vice  with  a  view  to  the  next  election,  or  to  keeping  one  or  another 
faction  of  the  party  in  control  of  the  party  machinery.  Party 
spirit  was  weak  in  colonial  times,  reached  its  fiercest  and  most 
relentless  point  in  the  two  civil  wars  of  the  Revolution  and  of 
the  Rebellion;  but  somewhat  declined  during  the  last  quarter- 
century.  Perhaps  parties,  like  the  religious  denominations,  are 
less  active,  because  neither  side  believes  the  other  to  be  wholly 
given  over  to  evil.  There  is  also  a  large  "unreliable,"  that  is 
independent,  vote,  which  looks  forward  to  some  distinct  reform 
and  is  willing  to  reach  it  indifferently  by  voting  for  the  candi 
dates  of  party  A,  party  B,  or  a  third  party.  Nevertheless,  most 
of  the  voters  in  the  United  States  throughout  their  lives  vote 
"the  straight  ticket"  of  a  particular  party,  and  accept  the  prin 
ciple  of  standing  ready  to  "vote  for  the  devil,  if  he  gets  the  regu 
lar  nomination." 

The  converse  of  this  intense  party  spirit,  and  another  evil 
fairly  attributable  to  democracy,  is  the  apathy  of  the  voter  who, 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY  367 

accused  of  being  "on  the  fence,"  replies,  "Of  course  I  am;  it's 
the  only  clean  place."  In  most  other  countries  the  rich  man,  or 
the  member  of  a  family  distinguished  in  public  service,  inherits 
or  seeks  for,  a  part  in  public  life;  in  America  some  representa 
tives  of  that  class  get  into  politics  by  the  simple  process  of  pay 
ing  party  campaign  expenses  for  a  sufficiently  long  time;  others 
by  native  ability  and  popularity,  backed  up  by  wealth;  the  larger 
number  either  will  not  strive  for  uncertain  honors,  or  look  upon 
politics  as  outside  their  life  and  interests. 

Democracy  is  chargeable  also  with  a  changeable  and  restless 
spirit,  which  interferes  with  the  formation  of  fixed  and  conserv 
ative  ideals.  Immigration  has  something  to  do  with  it,  and 
reemigration  still  more.  In  1900,  14,000,000  native  Americans 
were  not  living  in  the  State  in  which  they  were  born.  As  Tocque- 
ville  said  of  this  habit  of  mind,  "In  the  United  States  a  man 
builds  a  house  to  spend  his  latter  years  in  it,  and  he  sells  it  be 
fore  the  roof  is  on :  he  plants  a  garden,  and  lets  it  just  as  the  trees 
are  coming  into  bearing :  ...  he  settles  in  a  place,  which  he  soon 
afterward  leaves,  to  carry  his  changeable  longings  elsewhere." 
In  this  change  of  environment,  people  confuse  or  lose  their  ideals; 
public  men  appear  and  disappear;  national  standards  are  lost 
or  confused.  Allied  with  this  unrest  is  a  national  love  for  excite 
ment  upon  which  thrives  the  worst  influence  in  America,  the 
sensational  press.  When  people  prefer  scare  head-lines  and  big 
red  type  to  an  accurate  account  of  what  goes  on  in  the  world, 
what  becomes  of  that  sane  and  rational  public  opinion  which 
alone  can  save  democracy? 

Democracy  must  also  meet  the  current  belief  that  its  ideals 
do  not  exclude  the  most  scandalous  corruption.  Nor  is  it  an 
answer  to  say  that  the  English  boroughs  were  corrupt  and  that 
there  was  a  Tweed  Ring  nearly  fifty  years  ago.  In  national, 
state,  and  municipal  government,  from  time  to  time  some  revela 
tion  comes  to  show  how  many  public  officers  look  upon  govern 
ment  as  a  cow  to  be  milked.  Corruption  is  no  monopoly  of  popu 
lar  governments:  never  was  there  fouler  public  service  than 
under  the  French  Second  Empire.  American  democracy  must, 
however,  accept  the  responsibility  of  condoning  the  bribed  and 
consorting  with  the  bribers.  The  best  public  men,  whether  they 
will  or  no,  are  likely  to  find  that  votes  have  been  obtained  for 


368  ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART 

them  by  the  use  of  money  or  of  corrupt  influence.  No  frame 
of  government  can  prevent  corruption;  but  there  are  few  civil 
ized  parts  of  the  world  in  which  a  man  known  to  depend  upon 
the  worst  methods  can  hold  his  constituency  and  year  after 
year  retain  his  political  power. 

Democracy  may  make  many  failures  and  yet  not  be  a  failure. 
Are  there  dangers  which  seriously  threaten  the  national  ideals? 
The  territorial  extent  of  the  United  States  is  a  just  ground  for 
alarm.  The  continental  area  is  neat,  compact,  and  nearly  all 
included  in  statehood,  but  the  West  Indies  lie  near  by,  and  the 
appetite  for  islands  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on,  so  that  we  must 
look  forward  to  a  likely  annexation  of  Cuba  and  a  possible  addi 
tion  of  the  island  of  Santo  Domingo.  Alaska  can  be  cared  for; 
but  the  Isthmus  strip,  if  it  is,  as  President  Hayes  said,  "a  part 
of  our  coast  line,"  causes  some  disagreeable  reflections  as  to  the 
status  of  the  Central  American  regions  lying  between  the  coast 
line  and  our  present  boundary.  Probably  the  United  States 
can  assimilate  all  its  present  territory,  except  the  Philippine 
Islands:  with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  they  are  too  far  away, 
too  alien,  too  imbued  with  hopes  of  a  different  destiny,  to  accept 
national  ideals  and  become  an  undisputed  part  of  the  American 
empire. 

Otherwise  the  danger  of  sectional  divergence  seems  to  have 
passed  away.  Almost  all  the  European  countries  have  to  deal 
with  irreconcilable  regions:  England  has  Ireland;  Germany  has 
Posen;  Austria  has  Hungary;  even  Belgium  has  Flanders.  No 
such  region  exists  within  the  United  States.  The  North  and 
South  still  have  different  ideals  as  to  the  negro  race;  but  they 
are  united  by  personal  relationship,  commerce,  and  common 
standards.  The  East,  the  Middle  West,  and  the  Pacific  Slope 
are  interdependent  for  supplies  and  for  outports.  So  long  as  the 
East  furnishes  capital  for  the  development  of  the  West,  there 
will  be  quarrels  over  public  finance;  but  there  will  also  be  an 
intimacy  of  business  interest,  corresponding  to  the  free  exchange 
of  people  and  of  ideas. 

It  is  still  possible  that  rivalries  other  than  sectional  may 
spring  up  among  different  classes  or  interests.  Such  an  influence 
is  the  feeling  of  the  farmer  against  the  merchant  and  manufac- 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY  369 

turer;  of  the  producer  against  the  middleman  and  the  consumer; 
they  are  always  struggling  among  themselves  to  fix  their  rela 
tive  shares  of  the  national  output.  Jeffersonian  Republicans, 
Jacksonian  Democrats,  post-bellum  Greenbackers,  Grangers, 
and  Populists  have  all  carried  these  rivalries  into  politics.  This 
is  a  division,  however,  which  does  not  apply  to  the  workman  or 
the  city  dweller,  who  have  their  own  contests.  The  operative 
and  the  skilled  workman,  on  one  side,  and  the  employer  on  the 
other,  have  opened  up  a  battle  which  rages  throughout  the  West 
ern  world.  It  especially  disturbs  democracy  because  it  brings 
the  most  personal  and  passionate  issues  straight  into  party  issues 
and  elections;  and  because  one  body  of  contestants  aims  at  the 
reconstruction,  if  not  the  destruction,  of  existing  government. 
The  strife  between  labor  and  capital  is  like,  though  not  the  same 
as,  the  struggle  between  the  poor  and  the  rich,  which  hardly 
existed  previous  to  the  Civil  War,  because  there  was  no  prole 
tariat,  nor  any  massed  and  organized  wealth.  Conventional 
democracy  with  manhood  suffrage  would  seem  in  every  such 
contest  between  poor  and  rich  to  assure  the  victory  to  the  most 
numerous  class;  and  it  is  the  effort  of  the  rich  to  fortify  them 
selves  against  superior  numbers  that  has  led  to  much  of  the 
political  corruption  in  America.  So  far  the  remedy  has  been 
the  ease  with  which  the  poor  man  acquires  property,  the  prop 
erty  holder  becomes  well  off,  and  the  well-to-do  man  enters  the 
ranks  of  the  rich. 

That  ruin  is  the  future  portion  of  American  democracy,  that 
its  cherished  ideals  doom  it  to  failure,  has  been  the  belief  of 
many  observers.  Even  Tocqueville,  who  argued  that  some  repub 
lics  might  endure,  regretfully  predicted  that  democracy  "will 
in  the  end  set  all  the  guarantees  of  representative  government 
at  nought."  Edward  A.  Freeman  in  1863  wrote  a  book  on  fed 
eral  government  which  came  down  to  "the  disruption  of  the 
United  States."  Sir  Henry  Sumner  Maine,  in  1880,  after  prov 
ing  to  his  own  satisfaction  that  American  government  was  a  kind 
of  plagiarism  of  English  government,  went  on  to  deplore  its 
downfall.  Mr.  Lecky,  a  more  genial  spirit,  was  nevertheless 
convinced  that  democracy  had  not  established  itself  anywhere 
as  a  permanent  form  of  government. 


370  ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART 

When  all  these  dangers  have  been  examined,  there  is  still  hope 
of  the  permanence  of  American  democracy,  because  three  cen 
turies  of  experience  have  shown  that  there  are  national  ideals 
stronger  than  any  destructive  forces.  The  first  of  these  is  what 
Bryce  calls  "the  intense  faith  which  Americans  have  in  the  sound 
ness  of  their  institutions,  and  in  the  future  of  their  country." 
Americans  are  as  well  acquainted  with  their  own  defects  as  most 
people,  besides  the  incomparable  advantage  of  having  them 
pointed  out  from  week  to  week  by  The  Nation ;  and  they  ex 
pect  as  a  people  that  "to-morrow  shall  be  as  this  day,  and  much 
more  abundant."  They  have  that  faith  of  eventually  arriving 
in  port  which  makes  the  sailor;  and  if  there  are  wrecks  they  are 
few  in  proportion  to  the  shipping.  The  essential  principles  of 
democracy  spring  up  fresh  and  vigorous  with  each  new  genera 
tion. 

Nor  does  democracy  endure  simply  because  people  think  it 
is  a  good  thing.  It  lives  and  will  live  because  no  rival  system  can 
take  its  place.  Monarchy  is  as  impossible  as  theocracy;  even 
the  one-man  power  of  a  military  dictator  is  too  far  away  to  be 
even  a  respectable  dream.  Communism  or  even  collectivism 
is  impossible,  first  because  there  is  no  such  thing  as  putting  a 
hundred  million  lively  people  back  to  where  the  Indians  began; 
still  more  because  so  many  of  the  voters  have  more  property 
now  than  they  could  ever  get  under  any  system  of  collective 
ownership  and  distribution.  My  Uncle  Mowry  once  tried  to 
argue  his  Irish  neighbor  out  of  socialism.  "But,  Rafferty,  you 
have  more  than  the  average  now;  if  property  were  equalized  you 
would  be  worse  of!."  "Ah,  now,  the  idea!  There 's  Tim  Shaugh- 
nessey  that  lives  at  the  bottom  of  my  garden;  if  all  the  property 
in  the  world  was  divided,  he'd  have  a  hundred  dollars.  I'd  get 
that!" 

Socialism,  whatever  the  vague  term  may  mean,  is  impossible 
because  it  lies  outside  the  life  experience  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race.  The  trades  unions  move  in  that  direction,  and  if  they  were 
now,  or  could  in  the  nature  of  things  become,  a  majority  of  the 
voters  or  a  majority  of  the  physical  strength  of  the  country, 
they  might  make  the  experiment  of  a  socialistic  commonwealth; 
but  it  is  contrary  to  all  the  ideals  of  individualism,  of  equal 
opportunity,  of  restraint  on  government,  of  inherent  rights, 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY  371 

which  for  ten  generations  have  been  the  meat  and  drink  of  Ameri 
cans.  Paternalism  is  impossible,  if  by  the  term  is  meant  govern 
ment  support  and  direction  of  all  great  enterprises:  the  protec 
tive  tariff  looks  that  way,  but  it  is  impossible  to  say  what  the 
policy  of  the  country  will  be  on  that  subject,  even  ten  years 
hence;  the  present  status  of  railroads  looks  that  way,  but  so  does 
the  traditional  control  over  highways  and  navigable  streams. 
And  paternalism  flatly  collides  with  the  federal  ideals  of  which 
the  nation  is  the  chief  exponent.  An  oligarchy  of  commercial 
associations  is  impossible,  because,  though  the  great  corpora 
tions  and  the  great  labor  unions  can  up  to  a  certain  extent  unite 
to  control  prices  and  to  influence  government,  they  cannot 
make  their  interests  harmonize  with  those  of  the  day  laborer  and 
the  farmer.  Associations  of  all  kinds  are  the  creatures  of  law:  if 
they  are  small  they  antagonize  the  community;  if  they  are  large 
enough,  they  become  the  community.  The  whole  notion  of  cor 
porate  control  militates  against  the  ideals  of  rotation  in  office, 
against  constitutional  restrictions  on  association;  against  the 
national  dislike  of  minority  governments. 

Any  new  type  of  government,  any  serious  impairment  of 
democracy,  must  fight  against  a  system  of  national,  state,  and 
local  governments  as  well  established  and  as  capable  of  protect 
ing  themselves  as  any  in  the  world.  There  is  a  national  rever 
ence  for  the  Federal  Constitution,  akin  to  that  of  earlier  genera 
tions  for  the  Scriptures.  State  constitutions  and  local  charters 
are  more  easily  altered;  but,  because  they  are  made  and  can  be 
unmade  by  the  popular  will,  there  is  every  reason  for  obeying 
them.  The  lack  of  a  professional  class  of  officials  makes  gov 
ernment  weak  and  expensive,  but  it  prevents  the  growth  of  a 
bureaucracy,  which  might  substitute  itself  for  the  democratic 
system.  As  everybody  is  free,  and  most  men  have  the  suffrage, 
people  do  not  push  and  pull  in  the  effort  to  get  higher  up  in  the 
scale  of  political  privilege.  And  the  experience  of  America  shows 
that,  notwithstanding  a  dangerous  laxity  towards  small  com 
motions  and  especially  toward  the  violence  of  organized  labor, 
there  is  a  potential  vigor  which  comes  to  the  rescue  whenever 
state  or  national  government  is  threatened.  Few  indeed  are  the 
people  who  have  any  desire  for  a  sweeping  change  of  govern 
ment;  few  are  the  ideals  which  crumble  before  the  force  of  a 


372  ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART 

changing  public  opinion.  "In  Russia,"  said  a  Russian,  "every 
thing  is  prohibited,  and  everything  is  done."  In  the  United 
States,  where  nothing  is  prohibited,  the  only  thing  that  is  done 
is  to  hold  public  meetings  and  to  write  inflammatory  editorials. 
When  it  comes  to  a  decision,  Americans  are  profoundly  influ 
enced  by  the  ideal  of  private  interest  in  orderly  government,  and 
by  the  conservatism  and  slowness  of  change  characteristic  of 
Anglo-Saxons.  The  spirit  of  the  people,  their  written  consti 
tutions,  and  the  temper  of  mind  of  their  public  servants  are  all 
against  sudden  and  violent  changes. 

Hence  the  United  States  is  likely  not  only  to  endure,  but  to 
endure  free.  The  greatest  statesmen  and  shrewdest  observers 
may  mistake  the  signs  of  the  times,  as  witness  Hamilton's  errors. 
Even  Mr.  Godkin,  whose  pessimism  was  so  mellowed  by  the 
buoyancy  of  the  Irishman,  pointed  out  that  "We  cannot  tell 
whether  a  government  is  successful  or  not  without  seeing  how 
long  it  lasts.  The  first  duty  of  a  government  is  to  last.  A  govern 
ment,  however  good,  which  does  not  last,  is  a  failure";  and  he 
protested  against  "denying  to  any  democratic  society  the  capac 
ity  and  determination  to  remedy  its  own  defects  in  some  direc 
tion  or  other  by  some  means  or  other."  President  Eliot  sums 
up  as  "some  of  the  new  principles  and  forces  which  make  for  the 
permanence  of  the  Republic:  toleration  in  religion;  general  edu 
cation;  better  domestic  relations;  attention  to  the  means  of  pub 
lic  health  and  pleasure;  publicity;  corporation  service;  increased 
mutual  dependence  of  man  on  man,  and  therewith  a  growing 
sense  of  brotherhood  and  unity;  the  greater  hopefulness  and 
cheerfulness  of  men's  outlook  on  man,  the  earth,  the  universe,  and 
God;  and  finally,  the  changing  objects  and  methods  of  religion 
and  its  institutions.  It  is  the  working  of  these  principles  and 
forces,  often  unrecognized,  which  has  carried  the  republic  safely 
through  many  moral  difficulties  and  dangers."  It  was  Lincoln 
who  appealed  to  the  underlying  confidence  and  expectation  of 
the  Republic  in  the  hearts  of  common  men,  when  he  said  in 
1864:  "But  this  government  must  be  preserved,  in  spite  of  the 
acts  of  any  man  or  set  of  men.  It  is  worthy  of  your  every  effort. 
Nowhere  in  the  world  is  presented  a  government  of  so  much 
liberty  and  equality.  To  the  humblest  and  poorest  amongst  us 
are  held  out  the  highest  privileges  and  positions.  The  present 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY  373 

moment  finds  me  at  the  White  House,  yet  there  is  as  good  a 
chance  for  your  children  as  there  was  for  my  father's." 

It  is  one  thing  to  desire  that  democratic  ideals  shall  still  domi 
nate  America;  it  is  another  to  see  clearly  what  the  influences 
are  which  make  democracy  certain.  Perhaps  the  most  obvious 
is  a  national  ideal  of  public  interest,  as  a  guiding  force  in  public 
life.  The  willingness  to  serve  in  unpaid  commissionerships, 
legislatures,  and  constitutional  conventions;  the  readiness  in 
periods  of  national  danger,  such  as  the  Revolution  and  the 
Civil  War,  to  make  great  personal  sacrifices  for  public  weal,  to 
pay  heavy  taxes,  to  give  to  the  soldiers,  and  above  all  to  offer 
one's  lif e  for  one 's  country,  —  while  these  last  the  Republic  seems 
secure. 

For  America  is  infused  with  two  ideals,  which  though  they 
seem  to  be  contrary  are  really  adjuncts  to  each  other.  The  first 
is  the  high  level  of  common  sense,  which  shows  in  the  plain  and 
practical  spirit  of  the  average  man;  in  the  widely  diffused  belief 
that  it  is  a  bad  thing  to  break  the  law;  in  the  adherence  to  old 
forms  and  traditions,  combined  with  a  willingness  to  look  new 
ideas  in  the  face.  Even  when  the  laws  are  disregarded  there 
is  a  feeling  that  the  law  in  the  abstract  is  something  to  be  cher 
ished  and  obeyed.  Law  is  respected,  but  law  is  not  sacred  in  the 
sense  that  it  cannot  be  discussed  and  altered.  Americans  legis 
late  too  much,  yet  seldom  go  to  extremes.  No  people  has  ever 
shown  a  greater  genius  for  arriving  at  middle  ways,  by  adjust 
ments  like  the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820  and  the  Electoral 
Commission  of  1877. 

Associated  with  this  calm  and  prosaic  good  sense  is  an  imagi 
nation,  with  which  Americans  are  too  little  credited.  It  ac 
counts  for  the  myths  which  have  grown  up  about  the  great  men 
of  the  past,  such  as  the  idea  that  the  Southern  planters  of  the 
seventeenth  century  were  cavaliers,  or  that  the  Puritans  were 
entirely  spiritual  in  their  aims;  such  as  the  hagiology  of  the 
Revolutionary  worthies,  and  especially  the  stories  of  Washing 
ton's  boyhood;  such  as  the  legend  of  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman,  — 
all  of  which  are  as  well  substantiated  as  the  story  of  William 
Tell  or  of  Sinbad  the  Sailor.  American  imagination,  however, 
goes  far  beyond  the  ascription  of  impossible  virtues  to  ances- 


374  ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART 

tors.  It  means  a  national  capacity  of  expecting  national  great 
ness,  an  interest  in  great  events,  a  desire  to  share  a  great  destiny. 
It  means  that  public  sentiment  is  emotional,  idealistic,  some 
times  heroic. 

Common  sense  and  imagination  both  go  to  make  up  that 
force  of  public  opinion  which  is  perhaps  the  most  hopeful  na 
tional  ideal  of  America.  To  no  other  end  exist  parties  and  politics 
than  to  influence  this  great  goddess  of  reason.  Public  opinion 
is  formed  by  party  chieftains,  phrased  by  the  press,  imposed 
by  the  watchful  managers  on  a  weary  people.  Public  opinion 
normally  tends  to  smooth  out  the  erratic  and  unconventional 
views  of  reformers  and  objectors.  It  is  a  stream  turned  this  way 
and  that  by  various  artificial  obstacles,  sometimes  dammed  up, 
sometimes  stagnant:  wait  for  the  spring  freshet  and  it  will  carry 
everything  before  it!  It  is  not  a  stream,  it  is  a  glacier,  confined 
between  granite  walls,  crushing  down  to  powder  everything 
that  falls  upon  it;  and  woe  betide  the  man  or  the  party  that 
hopes  to  wall  it  in!  Within  its  limits,  it  is  always  moving,  al 
ways  pushing,  never  relenting,  and  it  will  and  must  in  the  end 
have  its  way.  The  purpose,  the  service,  of  American  democracy 
is  to  transform  this  crude  and  monstrous  force  into  a  power 
which  may  express  itself  in  human  government. 

Neither  democracy  nor  any  other  form  of  government  takes 
care  of  itself,  or  operates  of  itself.  Democratic  ideals,  like  all 
others,  must  be  put  into  force  through  human  agencies;  and 
the  success  of  public  opinion  depends  on  finding  those  who  may 
reflect  it.  That  democracy  can  recognize  character  is  shown  by 
the  history  of  the  United  States.  In  colonial  times  no  men  of 
genius  were  pocketed  for  want  of  appreciation;  the  Revolution 
fashioned  a  group  of  popular  heroes;  and,  notwithstanding  the 
infusion  of  foreign  elements,  the  American  people  act  as  one 
in  their  relation  to  their  leaders.  It  is  true  that,  since  the  Civil 
War,  men  who  would  formerly  have  gone  into  political  life  as 
almost  the  only  arena  of  distinction  are  now  satisfied  with  the 
humbler  task  of  making  money;  but  somehow  men  have  come 
forward  at  every  epoch  to  represent  their  countrymen.  So  far 
from  obscuring  greatness,  it  is  democracy  which  gives  the  great 
est  opportunity  to  the  otherwise  village  Hampdens.  In  no 
country  has  the  promising  boy  or  girl  such  a  likelihood  of  getting 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY  375 

the  necessary  training  and  finding  an  adequate  field.  There  is 
some  pith  in  Josiah  Quincy's  quip  that  Copley  had  gone  to  Eng 
land  and  become  a  lord,  because  lords  were  the  natural  product 
of  England;  and  that  he  remained  in  America  and  became  a 
sovereign,  because  sovereigns  were  the  products  of  America. 
Everybody  is  part  of  the  American  nation,  and  everybody  hopes 
to  make  his  capacities  felt. 

Again,  in  a  republic  it  is  not  the  mass  but  the  individual  that 
must  be  called  upon  for  the  work  of  government;  yet  a  sense  of 
common  needs  and  of  common  methods  gives  inspiration  to 
that  spirit  of  reform  which  is  one  of  the  most  striking  American 
ideals.  Conservative  and  influenced  by  precedent  as  Americans 
are,  disgracefully  willing  sometimes  to  put  up  with  bad  condi 
tions,  they  never  recognize  anything  as  hopeless.  The  enormous 
vested  interest  of  slavery  was  broken  to  pieces  by  the  advancing 
spirit  of  democracy;  corporations  and  trusts  totter  before  the 
same  mighty  force.  There  is  always  in  America  the  healing  spirit 
of  self-criticism  and  self-condemnation.  Social  workers  say  that 
there  is  nothing  so  hopeless  as  a  community  that  is  satisfied 
with  itself,  and  the  ideal  of  American  democracy  is  to  make 
things  better. 

Above  union,  and  above  the  development  of  the  fittest,  stands 
the  ideal  most  important  for  democracy,  that  of  finding  and 
following  leaders.  Americans  love  an  honest  man,  and  that 
means  not  only  one  who  does  not  steal,  but  the  consistent  and 
candid  statesman,  who  can  disagree  with  public  opinion  if 
necessary,  and  whose  policy  is  open,  aboveboard,  and  free  from 
secret  ties.  Americans  love  a  man  of  courage,  who  has  positive 
opinions  and  adheres  to  them,  who  can  resist  pressure;  they 
would  rather  have  obstinacy  than  a  facile  will;  they  want  a  man 
who  can  stand  against  influence,  abuse,  and  misrepresentation. 
Americans  love  a  belligerent  leader,  because  they  believe  that 
the  forces  of  evil  are  belligerent  and  tenacious.  They  want  a 
leader  of  constructive  power,  who  can  draft  legislation  and  force 
it  through  by  the  weight  of  his  will,  backed  up  by  public  senti 
ment.  Such  a  man,  whether  mayor,  governor,  cabinet  officer,  or 
president,  has  the  enthusiastic  confidence,  the  vital  support, 
and  the  personal  affection  of  his  countrymen. 

The  American  nation  is  a  majestic,  irresistible  combination 


376  ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART 

of  human  wills,  shaped  by  a  multitude  of  individuals,  each  transi 
tory,  each  active  in  itself,  yet  still  the  great  shape  moves  on. 
More  than  a  century  ago  Fisher  Ames  remarked  that  "mon 
archy  is  a  ship,  which  sails  well,  but  may  run  upon  a  rock;  the 
republic  is  a  raft  which  can  never  sink;  but  then  you  have  your 
feet  in  the  water  all  the  time."  Ours  is  a  raft  which  carries 
a  mighty  nation,  which  in  a  blundering  and  sidelong  fashion  still 
steers  by  the  old  stars.  If  American  history  means  anything,  — 
if  three  centuries  of  effort  manfully  and  persistently  spent  upon 
producing  a  form  of  government  that  will  do  its  work  and  yet 
will  never  wear  out,  have  been  at  all  worth  while,  —  if  the  hopes 
and  expectations  of  a  great  people  avail, 

Republica  esto  perpetua  I 


DEMOCRACY  AND  A  PROPHETIC  IDEALISM 

BY   EDWARD   LAMBE   PARSONS 

Delivered  before  the  Beta  of  California,  at  Leland  Stanford,  Jr.,  University, 

May  21,  1907. 

THE  vision  of  the  idealist  is  often  counted  a  most  unpractical 
thing.  If  it  has  its  value,  it  is  surely  not  a  value  due  to  its  aid 
in  the  solution  of  the  pressing  problems  of  the  day.  If  Democ 
racy,  "great  purblind  giant,"  is  plunging,  headlong  and  leader- 
less,  into  the  sea  of  problems  which  its  own  nature  has  evoked, 
it  is  not  the  idealist  who  will  save  it.  If  from  the  turmoil  of  that 
seething  ocean  rise  voices  which  question  the  very  existence  of 
the  mighty  triumphant  giant,  if  the  mist  takes  form  and  the 
wraiths  of  other  systems  shake  their  ominous  fingers,  if,  in  a 
word,  men  doubt  Democracy  itself,  it  is  not  idealism  which  will 
help.  So  men  have  thought  since  idealism  first  flashed  its  bright 
ray  over  human  life.  So  they  think  to-day;  and  to-day  as  always 
idealism  calls  them  to  come  aside  and  reason  together  and  learn 
that  the  shimmering  glory  of  the  sunlight  is  as  needful  to  life  as 
the  brown  earth  and  the  furrowing  plow  and  the  bent  back  of 
the  toiler. 

The  stream  of  higher  human  thought  which  has  expressed  for 
twenty-five  centuries  the  reflection  of  the  Western  world  upon 
its  meaning  and  its  destiny,  has  flowed  for  the  most  part  in  two 
great  channels.  Sand-bars  and  green  islands  divide,  broad  shin 
ing  shallows  link  together,  but  the  deep  currents  lie  apart,  here 
one  limpid  with  the  blue  of  heaven,  yonder  one  brown,  laden  with 
the  soil  of  earth.  We  call  these  streams  by  various  names  as  they 
flow  down  between  the  banks  of  the  centuries,  —  they  widen, 
they  narrow,  they  grow  shallower,  they  deepen.  The  blue 
catches  more  of  heaven's  own  color,  and  again  it  fades  pale;  the 
brown  waters'  shimmer  under  some  windswept  sky  like  bur 
nished  metal.  Astonishing  change  and  variety  everywhere  ap 
pear,  but  no  man  confuses  the  two  main  currents.  For  these 
two  currents  are  figures  of  the  two  fundamental  types  of  human 
thought.  The  one  type  represents  the  experience  of  man  with 


378  EDWARD  LAMBE  PARSONS 

his  ideas  and  ideals,  the  other  his  experience  with  the  world  of 
sense. 

The  long  line  which  begins  with  Plato  shows  its  unmistakable 
kinship  with  the  Master.  Utterly  different  from  Plato's  gorgeous 
wonder-world,  where  poetry  and  myth  jostle  with  dialectic 
subtlety,  and  logic  and  human  life  go  hand  in  hand,  is  the  cool, 
clear  reasoning  of  Aristotle.  Utterly  different  again  the  scholastic 
theology  of  Aquinas  and  the  God-flooded  thought  of  Spinoza 
and  the  profound  analysis  of  Hegel;  and  yet  one  knows  that  in 
that  real  world  of  philosophic  thought,  of  which  Dr.  Schiller 
writes  so  charmingly,  where  the  Master  sits  on  his  great  stone 
chair,  not  only  Aristotle  but  all  these  others  will  gather  around 
him  and  listen  to  his  words  and  differ  with  him  —  yes,  but  in 
their  manner  seeming  always  to  say,  "Thou  art  my  Master  and 
my  Teacher  thou." 

In  similar  fashion  around  some  other  master,  perhaps  a 
Democritus,  will  gather  the  distinguished  figures  of  another  long 
line :  Lucretius  and  Occam  and  the  Ency clopsedists  and  Hume, 
and  in  our  own  time  Spencer  and  Huxley  and  many  another 
great  philosophic  scientist.  Differing  as  they  do  individually, 
these  two  groups,  the  idealists  and  the  empiricists,  show  each 
its  own  special  characteristics,  each  its  own  special  point  of 
departure,  which  I  have  roughly  indicated  as,  for  the  one  group, 
man's  experience  with  his  ideas  and  ideals,  for  the  other,  his 
experience  with  the  world  of  sense-perception. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  carry  the  comparison  further,  but 
our  concern  to-day  lies  with  this  eternal  contrast  of  point  of 
view,  method  and  result,  only  so  far  as  it  serves  to  bring  into 
clearest  light  the  fundamental  and  essential  character  of  both 
in  human  thought.  Thought  cannot  go  far  unless  it  assumes 
that  there  is  a  fundamental  sanity  in  experience.  If  it  makes 
such  assumption,  it  is  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  any  element 
which  has  entered  continuously  and  powerfully  into  human 
thought  must  have  its  ground  in  reality.  Idealism  cannot  have 
played  its  role  and  be  a  dream.  Empiricism  cannot  have  served 
men  as  it  has  and  be  false  in  method  and  result.  We  are  dealing 
not  with  mutually  exclusive  systems,  but  with  contrasted  points 
of  view  both  of  which  are  necessary  to  the  full  interpretation  of 
experience. 


DEMOCRACY  AND  A  PROPHETIC  IDEALISM       379 

We  may  (although  of  course  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  speak 
in  any  detail  of  the  justification  of  these  systems),  after  the 
manner  of  the  modern  pragmatist,  find  the  justification  for  both 
in  that  they  work.  They  contribute  to  human  need.  They  en 
large  human  experience.  They  stimulate  human  progress.  The 
empirical  point  of  view  lies  at  the  beginning  of  all  scientific  prog 
ress.  It  masters  for  us  the  world  of  sense.  The  idealistic  point  of 
view  interprets  our  highest  aims  and  aspirations,  gives  consist 
ency  and  careful  expression  to  our  spontaneous  religious  feel 
ings,  and  warrants  our  longing  for  some  kind  of  finality. 

But  if  both  are  justified,  two  points  are  clear.  The  first  I  have 
already  mentioned.  The  systems  are  not  really  mutually  exclu 
sive.  They  are  simply  opposite  ways  of  approach  to  the  world 
problem.  A  true  idealism  will  necessarily  include  empiricism. 
A  true  empiricism  will  not  be  complete  until  it  has  reached  an 
idealistic  setting.  The  second  point  which  is  clear  is  that  the 
well-founded  objections  which  may  be  urged  against  any  system, 
be  it  empirical  or  idealistic  in  character,  touch  only  the  particu 
lar  system  involved.  They  do  not  invalidate  the  point  of  view 
and  the  real  meaning  for  human  life.  The  history  of  philosophy 
in  that  respect  is  precisely  parallel  to  the  history  of  Christian 
theology.  One  system  after  another  crumbles  away  before 
attack;  but  the  root  of  them  all,  the  vital  Christian  experience, 
survives,  and  before  the  dead  branch  is  fallen  to  the  ground 
another  is  shooting  forth,  sap-filled  and  leafy.  We  show  the  in 
consistency  of  Spinoza's  system,  we  refute  Hegel  and  point  out 
the  monstrous  corollaries  of  his  logic;  but  we  have  scarce  slain 
the  leader  before  we  are  fencing  with  a  dozen  of  his  followers. 
In  our  time,  in  England  and  America,  we  see  Hegelianism  losing 
its  hold,  chiefly,  I  believe,  because  it  does  not  interpret  adequately 
the  freedom  of  the  individual;  but  if  we  were  to  infer  that  there 
fore  idealism  is  losing  its  hold  on  the  modern  world,  we  would  be 
vastly  mistaken.  The  scientific  movement  which  found  its  best 
expression  in  the  fine  ethical  sense  of  Huxley,  and  a  crude  philo 
sophical  definition  in  Spencer,  has  been  pushed  back  by  pragma 
tism,  the  modern  philosophy  of  common  sense,  and  pragmatism 
is  fighting  the  battles  of  idealism,  and  idealism  calls  itself  personal 
and  disowns  Hegel  —  or  follows  Hegel  and  lands  in  a  dim  and 
flat  atheism.  Is  it  proof  that  there  is  no  substance  in  it  all?  Not 


380  EDWARD  LAMBE  PARSONS 

so;  but  revelation,  to  any  wise  and  seeing  eye,  that  the  thing  is 
ineradicable.  Human  life  is  frankly  idealistic  and  must  be  so. 

That  is  our  first  ground.  And  now  we  shall  ask  ourselves  what 
this  idealism  means.  The  pedant,  the  logician,  the  lawyer  will 
have  you  define  to  a  hair's  breadth;  but  who  that  from  the  hill 
top  has  seen  the  vast  stretches  of  ocean  melt  into  the  undefined 
horizon,  or  in  the  throbbing  life  of  humanity  has  felt  the  power 
of  undefined  need  and  unreasoning  aspiration,  who  that  in  the 
spring-time  of  his  youth  has  shouted  for  unmeasured  joy,  will 
ask  for  measured  definition?  It  is  meaning  that  we  want.  It  is 
significance  that  we  need.  For  idealism,  then,  it  is  to  get  to  the 
root  of  its  hold  upon  human  life  and  its  significance  for  it.  In  the 
schools  we  must  discuss  its  problems  and  its  grounds;  we  must 
bring  to  play  our  dialectic  skill  —  but,  of  the  school  no  longer, 
what  we  want  is  meaning,  message,  purpose,  power  —  in  a  word, 
What  has  it  to  do  with  life?  We  can  dismiss  the  definer  as  you 
will  remember  Plato  dismisses  him:  "But  whether,  (Glaucon), 
such  a  city  exists  or  ever  will  exist  in  fact,  is  no  matter;  for  he 
who  has  seen  it  will  live  after  the  manner  of  that  city." 

What  then  has  idealism  to  do  with  life?  The  fundamental 
assertion  of  idealism  is  that  the  hidden  reality  of  the  world  is 
revealed  in  the  high  spirit  of  man,  that  truth  and  beauty  and 
goodness  and  all  ideal  things  belong  not  only  to  the  ideal  world 
of  man's  hopes,  but  to  the  real  world  itself,  that  God  is  what 
man  would  be.  The  whole  world  of  sense  is  as  the  ancient  phi 
losophy  of  the  ancient  cradle  of  our  race  described  it  —  a  veil. 
The  true  idealist  doubts  not  its  empirical  reality,  but  in  it  and 
through  it  he  discerns  always  the  shining  of  the  ideal.  The  world 
is  aglow  with  heavenly  light.  The  invisible  is  visible.  With  the 
eye  of  faith  this  idealist  endures  as  seeing  that  which  is  invisible. 
He  possesses  the  transfiguring  eye  which  unveiled  to  those 
disciples  on  the  mountain  top  the  meaning  of  their  Master's  life. 
Nature  and  man  have  glory  other  than  that  which  the  senses 
know.  Scudding  clouds,  high  towering  redwoods,  deep  moist 
brook  bottoms,  tall  drooping  ferns,  shimmer  with  a  divine  radi 
ance  which  gives  them  meaning;  hard  burning  pavements,  long 
ribbons  of  glistening  metal,  vast  steely  skeletons,  and  many- 
windowed  walls;  clanging  bells,  rattling  wheels,  noise,  turmoil, 
—  the  transfiguring  eye  has  seen  it  all  in  the  great  sweep  of  his- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  A  PROPHETIC  IDEALISM       381 

tory,  read  it  in  the  light  of  that  city  whose  pattern  is  in  heaven  — 
"dear  City  of  God."  And  so,  too,  whether  it  be  the  degraded 
woman  in  the  lamp  glare,  the  confessing  corruptionist  on  the 
stand,  or  the  hero-saint  whose  life-blood  flows  for  his  fellows, 
the  idealist  understands  it  all  as  but  the  distorted  reflection  or 
the  faint  foreshadowing  of  the  real.  The  true  end  is  not  yet. 

It  is  very  clear  that  such  idealism  as  this  may  easily  lie  open 
to  the  charge  that  it  concerns  itself  with  things  too  far  removed 
from  practical  life  to  be  effective.  The  abundant  glory  of  the 
visions  may  prompt  to  the  cry,  "Let  us  abide  here  and  build 
for  ourselves  tabernacles."  The  delight  of  keen  mind-play  or 
the  easy  joy  of  day-dreaming  may  withdraw  the  idealist  from 
the  practical  world  and  his  ideals  may  find  little  contact  with  the 
common  life  of  men.  It  may  be  so,  but  it  does  not  need  to  be 
so.  Plato  did  not  think  it  so.  In  the  very  phrase  I  quoted  a 
moment  ago  he  insisted  that  the  man  who  had  seen  the  vision 
of  the  city  in  heaven  must  "live  after  the  manner  of  it."  More 
could  write  of  Utopia,  but  none  the  less  be  a  power  in  the  prac 
tical  issues  of  his  day.  And  this  I  believe  the  true  idealist  will 
ever  be,  and  the  more  potent  because  his  eye  is  ever  upon  the 
ideal. 

For  what  is  the  essence  of  the  attitude  towards  the  world  and 
its  problems  which  this  vision  of  the  ideal  creates?  It  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  idealist  sees  in  all  the  common  issues  of  life  not  the 
immediate  ends  alone  but  the  large  final  ends  towards  which 
society  is  working.  If  the  clamor  is  for  bread,  he  remembers 
that  man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone.  If  the  cry  is  for  arbitra 
tion  of  a  labor  dispute,  he  sees  not  only  the  need  of  peace,  but 
the  whole  meaning  of  man's  upward  struggle  and  the  real  ques 
tions  which  lie  at  issue  concerning  the  final  destiny  of  human 
society.  Thus  he  is  fitted,  of  all  men  fitted,  to  get  values  right, 
to  see  what  practical  and  immediate  solutions  mean,  and  to 
forecast  in  some  way  their  relations  to  the  permanent  and  un 
changing  ideals.  It  is  to  describe  this  kind  of  practical  idealism 
that  I  have  chosen  the  phrase  "prophetic  idealism."  It  is  not  to 
add  another  to  the  many  varieties  of  philosophical  idealism. 
They  may  fight  out  their  battles  in  the  books  and  journals  and 
the  unromantic  lecture  halls  which  do  duty  for  the  Garden  and 
the  Porch  and  the  Symposium  of  the  brave  days  of  old.  It  is 


382  EDWARD  LAMBE  PARSONS 

enough  for  most  of  us  that  we  should  feel  that  the  idealistic 
attitude,  the  meaning  of  idealism,  is  justified  as  an  ineradicable 
possession  of  human  life  and  a  necessary  aspect  of  human 
experience.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  feel  that  whether  we  approach 
it  metaphysically  or  historically,  our  natural  idealism,  our 
spontaneous  religious  response  to  the  best  as  being  likewise  the 
real,  is  justified.  Then  let  us  get  to  work.  Then  let  us  be 
prophets. 

History  knows  no  more  magnificent  line  of  men  than  the 
prophets  of  Israel.  They  were  idealists  through  and  through. 
They  lived  in  the  very  air  of  the  City  of  God.  They  expected 
its  glowing  battlements  to  be  builded  before  their  eyes;  but 
they  grappled  with  the  earnestness  and  force  of  men  of  this 
common  earth  with  the  problems  which  their  own  troublous 
times  presented.  They  suggest  the  phrase,  and  it  is  in  that  spirit 
that  I  would  ask  you  to  approach  some  of  the  problems  which 
are  to-day  involved  in  the  rapid  progress  of  democracy.  What 
has  an  idealism  which  is  sure  of  itself,  as  I  have  tried  to  suggest 
to  you  it  may  be  sure  of  itself,  to  say  to  us?  What  light,  what 
guidance,  what  hope  has  it  to  give? 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  men  are  questioning  the  very 
grounds  of  democracy  itself.  Its  sudden  growth  and  the  vast 
changes  in  its  form  which  a  century  has  seen,  make  that  inevi 
table.  Hardly  four  generations  have  passed  since  Rousseau  was 
giving  expression  to  the  underlying  motives  of  the  French 
Revolution  and  men  had  begun  to  talk  about  the  Social  Con 
tract  and  the  source  of  political  authority.  Free  government  of 
any  really  democratic  character  scarcely  existed  outside  some 
of  the  colonies  in  America.  England  had  won  freedom,  but  she 
had  not  become  a  democracy.  France  seemed  helpless  at  the 
feet  of  the  Bourbons.  In  Germany,  Italy,  Spain  the  thing  was  a 
dream.  The  swift  years  have  passed.  The  progress  of  scientific 
discovery  has  knit  the  world  into  one  fellowship.  Disturbances 
on  its  remotest  bounds  are  felt  at  the  heart  of  civilized  life.  The 
interests  of  mankind  have  been  wondrously  communized,  and 
with  this  growing  unity  the  whole  centre  of  power  has  changed. 
The  politics  of  the  world  reflect  no  longer  the  intrigues  of  rival 
dynasties,  but  the  desires  and  ambitions  of  the  people  themselves. 
Even  in  Russia  a  Douma  has  been  called.  Even  in  those  mysteri- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  A  PROPHETIC  IDEALISM       383 

cms  empires  of  the  East  there  are  rising  men  trained  in  the  ways 
of  the  Western  world  whose  conceptions  of  government  involve 
the  final  appeal  to  the  people.  In  these  four  generations  the 
world  about  which  civilization  concerns  itself  has  grown  from 
a  few  favored  nations  of  Europe  and  a  thin  strip  of  American 
seaboard  to  include  practically  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  And 
in  all  this  vast  assembly  of  the  peoples  the  centre  of  power  has 
changed  from  the  few  to  the  many,  from  the  kings  to  the  people. 
That  would  be  a  fearful  test  of  any  system  of  government.  It  is 
a  fearful  test  of  democracy.  The  world  has  seen  nothing  like  it. 
The  democracies  of  the  ancient  world  were  but  little  things  and 
their  theory  incomplete.  The  types  of  government  which  have 
existed  in  civilized  nations  have  had  their  age-long  tests  in  slow 
social  changes,  slower  opening  up  of  new  countries,  and  compar 
ative  isolation.  But  the  triumph  of  democracy  thus  carried  in  a 
century  over  the  whole  earth  has  subjected  it  to  a  strain  abso 
lutely  without  precedent. 

Parallel  to  these  changes  have  gone  economic  developments 
which  have  altered  within  a  less  period  the  whole  problem  of 
democracy.  It  was  once  a  problem  of  man's  relation  to  govern 
ment,  a  purely  political  problem.  Jefferson  could  define  an  ideal 
democracy  in  this  way:  "A  wise  and  frugal  government  which 
shall  restrain  men  from  injuring  one  another,  shall  leave  them 
otherwise  free  to  regulate  their  own  pursuits  of  industry  and 
improvement,  and  shall  not  take  from  the  mouth  of  labor  the 
bread  it  has  earned.'1'  It  seemed  to  him  enough  that  the  police 
power  should  be  effectively  exerted  and  unjust  taxation  be 
avoided;  then  were  opportunity  at  hand  and  freedom  won. 
But  a  century  has  discovered  to  us  that  to  keep  men  from  injur 
ing  one  another  does  not  mean  only  the  police  power  effectively 
exerted:  that  injury  is  done  in  a  thousand  ways  which  the  police 
power  does  not  reach,  and  that  to  leave  men  free  to  regulate 
their  own  industry  is  to  leave  them  free  to  sacrifice  the  many  in 
the  interests  of  the  few.  It  seemed  as  if  democracy  had  achieved 
its  end  when  every  man  was  given  a  hand  in  the  making  of  the 
law,  when  political  equality  was  won.  But  no  sooner  was  that 
done  than  the  problem  was  shifted  further  back,  and  became  not 
a  political  but  an  industrial  and  social  problem.  When  Dr. 
Devine  says  that  our  modern  ideal  is  "a  nearer  approach  to 


384  EDWARD  LAMBE  PARSONS 

equality  of  opportunity,"  it  is  a  social  ideal  of  which  he  speaks. 
In  other  words,  political  equality  of  opportunity  has  been  won. 
It  is  social  and  industrial  equality  of  opportunity  that  we  are 
now  seeking.  But  here  again  democracy  has  another  terrible 
strain  put  upon  it.  Before  ever  it  has  worked  out  in  any  half 
successful  way  the  details  of  its  political  ideal,  there  are  forced 
upon  it  all  the  vast  and  complicated  problems  of  its  social 
implications. 

Then,  too,  this  same  wonderful  century  has  seen  a  great  over 
turning  of  the  methods  of  men's  thinking.  The  joyous  ration 
alism  of  the  days  of  the  Illumination  is  gone  forever.  Men  see 
that  history  is  no  artificial  product  of  a  carefully  worked  out 
agreement;  they  see  that  a  new  world  cannot  be  programmed 
into  being  after  a  few  hours'  debate  or  a  quiet  evening's  discus 
sion  of  the  philosophers.  Institutions  have  grown  and  changed 
form  with  the  centuries.  Democracy  is  a  product  of  certain  plain 
historical  conditions.  Why  should  it  not  vanish  away  as  it  has 
come? 

Thus  it  has  come  to  pass  that  between  the  change  in  the  way 
of  approach  to  such  problems  and  the  fearful  strain  put  upon  it 
in  its  applications,  men  have  begun  to  challenge  even  the  prin 
ciples  of  democracy.  A  good  deal  of  this  challenge  is  uncon 
scious.  Men  revere  the  giant  even  as  they  stretch  the  threads 
to  tie  him  down.  A  good  deal  of  it  is  indirect.  Men  are  hardly 
ready  to  enter  the  ring  with  so  formidable  a  foe.  They  will 
blacken  his  character  a  little,  besmirch  his  good  name,  show 
how  clumsy  he  is,  how  he  crushes  some  of  the  pretty  flowers 
by  his  path,  how  he  is  dull  of  mind  and  perhaps  cruel  and  selfish 
of  heart,  this  Leviathan  of  modern  days.  If  he  is  all  that,  then 
it  follows  —  Oh,  nothing  follows.  We  were  just  photographing 
our  Master,  the  People,  as  he  plunged  along. 

I  am  not  exaggerating.  We  are  all  perfectly  familiar,  for  ex 
ample,  with  the  ground  taken  in  the  questions  arising  through 
the  contact  of  superior  and  inferior  races  —  awkward  ground  to 
stand  on  sometimes  when  one  of  the  inferior  races  appears  sud 
denly  in  the  lists,  suncrested,  full  armed.  Familiar,  too,  are  we 
all  with  the  scorn  poured  out  upon  that  document  once  counted 
well-nigh  heaven  sent,  which  dared  to  assert  that  government 
rests  upon  the  consent  of  the  governed.  How  the  greedy  wor- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  A  PROPHETIC  IDEALISM       385 

shippers  of  Mammon  chorused  that  we  had  moved  on  to  braver 
days  and  nobler  deeds  and  higher  principles  than  our  fathers 
knew!  How  the  political  power- worshippers  cried  of  the  need  of 
sacrifice !  Yes,  how  the  religious  journals  found  casuistry  to  suit 
the  need!  Government,  cries  their  protagonist,  rests  upon  the 
consent  of  the  governed?  Nay,  but  upon  the  "will  of  God  and 
the  pattern  of  his  law."  Forward,  then,  ye  worshippers  of  God. 
Fear  not  your  manifest  destiny.  Let  the  meek  wait  to  "in 
herit  the  earth."  Ye  cannot  wait.  It  is  yours  to  subdue  it. 

Power  is  adored  among  us,  and  power  wills  not  democracy. 
The  Big  Stick  involves  vastly  more  than  a  quick  method  in 
politics  and  an  easy  mark  for  the  cartoonist.  It  is  symptomatic. 
Only  the  other  day,  in  an  address  on  True  and  False  Democ 
racy,  the  president  of  one  of  our  leading  universities  implied 
that  true  democracy  means  practically  the  entrusting  of  almost 
unlimited  power  to  the  single  executive,  and  throughout  he 
seemed  to  shudder  as  he  heard  the  thunderous  step  of  the  peo 
ple.  He  called  it  the  mob. 

These  more  general  questionings  are  followed  by  numbers  of 
detailed  problems.  Universal  suffrage,  negro  suffrage,  the  suf 
frage  for  alien  races,  the  problems  of  race  relationships,  of  edu 
cation  and  of  lawlessness  all  open  out  upon  the  stability  of 
democracy.  Careful  studies  raise  questions  of  the  limits  of 
democracy.  A  recent  writer  has  tried  to  forecast  the  possible 
permanency  of  a  system  which  should  realize  the  tendencies 
prevailing  in  England  to-day.  Finally  liberty  is  invoked  and 
men  are  asked  whether  democracy  has  or  has  not  furthered 
personal  liberty.  There  is  a  kind  of  pathos  in  that  famous 
book  of  Lecky's  —  now  ten  years  old  —  Democracy  and  Lib 
erty.  "Democracy  seems  inevitable,"  he  says,  "but  where  is 
liberty?" 

But  back  of  it  all  is  the  growing  fear  that  the  Giant  Democracy 
may  turn  out  to  be  the  Monster  Socialism,  masquerading.  Men 
shudder  at  the  mob.  They  tremble  lest  the  red,  white,  and  blue 
stripped  off,  the  monster  shall  appear  clothed  in  red  alone. 
"The  great  purblind  giant  Democracy  with  the  heart  and  intel 
ligence  of  the  child  and  drunk  with  the  wine  of  a  sentimental 
magnanimity,  has,"  says  a  recent  writer,  "been  chosen  to  lead 
us  through  strange  ways  before  we  have  done  with  him."  It  is 


386  EDWARD  LAMBE  PARSONS 

socialism  he  fears.  It  is  the  dread  of  socialism  which  is  the 
source  of  many  a  doubt  of  democracy. 

I  have  said  enough  to  recall  to  you  the  ominous  questions, 
the  hesitant  attitude,  the  confusing  doubts,  which  have  taken 
the  place  of  the  glad  enthusiasm  of  a  century  past.  I  have 
hinted  enough  to  suggest  to  you  that  the  prophetic  idealist 
does  not  share  this  age  spirit,  but  with  the  gladness  of  an  earlier 
age  and  the  calm  certainty  born  of  his  vision  of  the  permanent 
ends  towards  which  society  is  working  and  the  fundamental 
spiritual  facts  upon  which  it  is  built,  proceeds  to  play  his  part 
in  the  working  out  of  the  problem.  It  is  part  of  his  rooted  faith 
that  democracy  is  of  the  world  order.  Men  are  free  spirits  in 
God's  world,  and  whatever  their  outward  condition,  they  bear 
the  same  fundamental  relation  to  God.  No  differences  in  con 
dition  affect  the  relationship.  No  inequalities  of  endowment  or 
equipment  impair  it.  Every  man  stands  like  every  other,  one 
of  this  vast  assemblage  of  free  spirits  linked  together  by  their 
common  relations  to  the  Supreme  Spirit.  Such  they  are  and 
such  they  must  ever  be. 

In  Democracy,  then,  he  sees  that  ideal  becoming  actual.  He 
hears  that  word  which  brings  kings  and  emperors  to  the  dust, 
which  casts  the  mighty  from  their  seats  and  exalts  the  humble 
and  meek.  He  sees  that  such  a  fundamental  fact  in  the  world 
of  the  ideal  must  mean,  as  it  works  out  in  the  actual  world,  the 
same  kind  of  equality.  He  sees  that  that  is  what  democracy 
has  achieved  in  political  affairs.  It  has  said  that  men  must  be 
equal  before  the  law.  It  has  not  said  that  they  must  be  equal 
in  their  knowledge  of  the  law.  It  has  not  said  that  they  must 
render  equal  service  or  have  equal  reward.  It  has  said  that 
they  must  be  equal  in  their  relations  to  government.  In  all  the 
inequalities  of  nature  it  sees,  often  with  unseeing  eye,  that 
which  the  idealist  understands  so  well,  that  a  man  is  always  a 
free  spirit,  a  divine  unit  in  God's  world. 

"By  misery  unrepelled,  unawed 

By  pomp  or  power,  thou  seest  a  Man 
In  prince  or  peasant,  slave  or  lord, 

Pale  priest  or  swarthy  artisan. 
Through  all  disguise,  form,  place  or  name, 

Beneath  the  flaunting  robes  of  sin, 
Through  poverty  and  squalid  shame, 


DEMOCRACY  AND  A  PROPHETIC  IDEALISM       387 

Thou  lookest  on  the  man  within! 
On  man,  as  man,  retaining  yet, 

Howe'er  debased  and  soiled  and  dun, 
The  crown  upon  his  forehead  set, 

The  immortal  gift  of  God  to  him." 

Thus  the  idealist  understands  the  eternal  meaning  of  democ 
racy;  but  he  does  not  dream  about  it.  He  is  a  prophet,  too,  and 
he  puts  his  faith  into  practice.  The  vision  does  not  grow  dim 
before  his  eyes,  however  dim  the  crown  may  seem  to  him  who 
has  not  the  transfiguring  eye.  He  trusts  the  people,  —  that  is 
the  first  practical  precept.  He  knows  the  cheap  cry  that  the 
mere  adding  together  of  a  multitude  of  average  intelligences 
does  not  produce  wisdom.  That  is  perfectly  true.  He  knows, 
too,  that  the  judgment  of  the  people  may  again  and  yet  again 
be  less  wise  than  the  judgment  of  the  one.  He  knows  that 
majorities  do  not  make  right.  He  knows  that  there  must  be 
clear- visioned  leaders.  But  he  knows  likewise  that  the  people 
are  not  a  mob,  and  that,  as  it  is  a  fact  that  there  is  a  mob- 
consciousness  which  may  lead  to  evil  such  as  no  individual 
member  of  the  mob  would  have  wrought  alone,  so  there  is  a 
consciousness-of-the-people  which  does  clarify  the  mind  and 
exalt  the  will  of  the  individual  to  deeds  of  heroism  and  sacrifice 
such  as  he  would  not  and  could  not  achieve  alone.  It  is  the 
subtle  working  of  the  eternal  idea  in  the  common  world  order. 
But  behind  all  that,  he  sees  that  there  can  be  no  solid  and  lasting 
order  which  is  not  founded  in  the  equal  sharing  of  all.  Social 
order  must  ideally  be  for  all,  and  therefore  it  must  be  of  all. 
Otherwise  it  violates  the  fundamental  relationship  of  men  to 
one  another  in  the  republic  of  God,  and  violating  that  relation 
ship  it  must  totter  to  its  ruin.  This  is  only  saying  over,  with 
regard  to  the  eternal  order,  what  Fiske  says  of  the  practical 
basis  of  democracy:  that  "it  rests  upon  the  ultimate  interest  of 
every  man  in  good  government."  He  is  content,  therefore,  with 
a  less  satisfactory  government  which  is  upon  permanent  founda 
tions  instead  of  craving  a  more  satisfactory  government  which 
has  no  lasting  character.  Of  course  he  will  mourn  over  the  fail 
ures,  the  errors,  the  corruptions  of  the  people's  rule.  He  will  well 
understand  (and  being  a  man  he  will  now  and  again  find  his 
heart  going  out  in  sympathy  towards)  the  cry  of  Carlyle,  "Oh, 


388  EDWARD  LAMBE  PARSONS 

for  a  Willelmus  Conquestor,  a  conquering  William,  a  big  burly 
William  Bastard!"  Is  it  not  true  that  "a  child  in  this  William's 
reign  might  have  carried  a  purse  of  gold  from  end  to  end  of 
England"?  True,  O  worshipper  of  heroes,  true  —  but  this 
William  died  and  with  him  died  the  order  which  he  made.  For  it 
was  not  founded  upon  a  lasting  ideal.  It  grew  not  from  beneath. 
It  was  forced  from  above.  It  denied  the  God-set  crown.  It 
seemed  to  take  account  of  facts;  but  it  did  not.  Is  it  a  matter  of 
going,  of  direction?  Better  then  to  go  wrong  in  the  right  direc 
tion  than  right  in  the  wrong  direction. 

And  thus  there  is  discovered  to  him  the  note  of  all  his  efforts, 
the  motif  of  his  striving.  The  fault  lies  not  with  democracy  as 
such,  but  in  the  incompleteness  of  man's  understanding  of 
democracy.  Man  must  be  trained,  educated,  lifted.  He  must 
learn  to  know  his  ideal  worth  and  lift  himself  to  it.  In  the 
words  of  that  fine  idealist,  the  poet  Schiller  (a  very  different 
being,  by  the  way,  from  that  keen-witted  Schiller  who  bids  fair 
soon  to  hold  the  centre  point  of  interest  in  English  philosophy), 
in  Schiller's  words,  "the  individual  must  become  the  state,  by 
the  phenomenal  man  ennobling  himself  to  the  ideal  man."  A 
far  look  ahead  that  is,  to  be  sure;  far  beyond  what  the  world  of 
to-day  with  its  self-seeking  greed,  its  low  ideals,  its  utter  con 
tent  which  the  phenomenal  presents  to  our  gaze.  A  far  look 
ahead  and  along  a  path  uncertain,  oft  unlighted,  winding,  a 
very  "wood  of  Errour."  What  chances  of  wrong  going,  what 
certainties  of  mistake,  what  heart-burnings  and  strivings  —  but 
what  of  that?  Democracy  is  willing  to  take  chances.  Its  ideals 
abide,  and  through  the  dark  foliage  gleams  the  light  of  day. 

Because  he  lives  in  this  vision  of  the  end  and  understands, 
therefore,  that  all  achievement  which  falls  short  of  that  is  only 
relatively  good,  the  prophetic  idealist  is  far  removed  from  the 
doctrinaire.  The  doctrinaire  is  a  programmist.  He  has,  for 
example,  the  rights  of  man  at  his  tongue's  end.  He  has  a  pro 
gramme  which  will  exactly  express  those  rights.  That,  and  that 
only,  is  satisfactory.  In  dealing  with  other  programmes  and 
other  views  he  does  not  seek  their  meaning  and  essential  value, 
but  sets  attention  upon  details,  seeks  flaws,  criticises  consistency. 
If  an  idealist  falls  into  this  habit  of  mind,  it  is  because  he  has 
lost  touch  with  the  actual  and  his  ideal  is  become  itself  a  pro- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  A  PROPHETIC  IDEALISM       389 

gramme.  For  programme  and  ideal  are  totally  at  variance.  A 
programme  is  wooden,  mechanical,  dead  —  fitted  together  like 
a  box  to  hold  certain  conditions.  An  ideal  is  living,  growing,  the 
possession  of  living  and  growing  minds,  searching  into  infinite 
meanings.  If  it  is  nebulous,  it  is  not  because  its  light  is  not  bright, 
its  spectrum  vivid,  but  because  it  lies  so  far  away.  The  pro 
phetic  idealist  who  has  not  lost  touch  with  the  actual,  regards 
programmes  therefore  as  guesses  at  method,  as  suggested  ways  of 
reaching  the  ideal.  He  is  not  bound  down  to  one  programme. 
He  is  free  to  accept  or  reject,  to  gather  here  and  cast  away  there. 
He  seeks  the  meaning  of  every  programme  and  is  interested  in 
the  programme  itself  only  as  its  meaning  helps  to  make  the  ideal 
more  real. 

When  Franklin  in  1754  proposed  his  scheme  of  Federation 
for  the  American  Colonies,  the  programmist  was  up  in  arms. 
It  was  easy  to  see  mistakes,  to  point  out  the  difficulties  in  the 
way,  to  stress  the  lack  of  desire  upon  the  part  of  the  people  for 
any  such  union.  The  programmist  made  his  points  and  tri 
umphed.  But  I  suspect  Franklin  thought  little  of  the  pro 
gramme  itself.  I  am  sure  many  an  idealist,  dreaming  of  his 
country's  future,  thought  little  of  the  programme,  but  quietly 
rejoiced  that  an  ideal  had  been  presented.  The  programme  was 
only  a  guess  at  method. 

It  is  in  that  spirit  that  the  prophetic  idealist  approaches  the 
question  of  socialism.  As  he  reads  socialistic  literature,  and  con 
siders  its  frankly  destructive  tirades,  its  distorted  economics,  its 
reversed  values,  its  mechanical  ideas  of  progress,  as  if  true  prog 
ress  could  be  forced  from  without  in  and  men  made  righteous 
by  law,  its  huge  top-heavy  state,  —  he  sees  that  here  we  have  a 
programme  which  would  recreate  the  social  order  by  the  simple 
fiat  of  a  vote  and  then,  its  creative  day  passed,  rest  in  an  eternal 
Sabbath.  This  he  sees,  but  he  does  not  meet  the  issue  as  does 
the  other  programmist.  Rather,  he  says,  what  have  we  here 
for  deep  meaning,  what  relation  does  this  vast  unwieldy  and 
unworkable  programme  bear  to  the  realization  of  that  state 
which  shall  adequately  express  men's  real  relation  in  the  repub 
lic  of  God?  Here  we  come  to  sliding  ground,  to  quicksand  foot 
ing.  But  courage!  We  know  the  real  relations  of  men.  We 
should  have  some  light  to  help  us  understand  the  movement 


390  EDWARD  LAMBE  PARSONS 

which  has  taken  such  hold  upon  multitudes.  I  shall  not  emulate 
Schaffle  and  discourse  to  you  upon  the  quintessence  of  socialism. 
I  find  this  quintessence  but  a  bald  programme  of  the  impossible. 
Yet  will  I  venture  to  say  to  you  what  seems  to  me  the  essence 
of  socialism,  the  true  meaning  which  inhabits  it. 

On  the  one  hand,  surveying  the  hold  which  the  caste  idea  has 
still  upon  men,  the  special  privilege,  the  upper  and  the  lower, 
intending  thereby  naught  of  wealth  of  service  or  loyalty  of  life, 
but  only  outward  condition,  the  socialist  lifts  up  his  cry  of  pro 
test.  He  would  have  democracy  realize  itself  by  establishing 
such  conditions  as  will  once  and  for  all  eliminate  this  undemo 
cratic  consciousness  from  the  state.  The  suffrage  has  not  done 
it;  for  the  powerful  and  the  rich  still  herd  their  retainers  to  the 
polls  as  in  days  of  old  they  herded  them  to  battle,  and  as  of  old 
they  count  themselves  of  loftier  kind.  Socialism  will  wipe  away 
this  distinction,  will  crush  this  class  spirit,  will  create  a  real 
brotherhood.  Will  it  do  it  by  programme?  What  of  that?  Is 
the  programme  unworkable?  What  of  that?  The  prophetic 
idealist  will  rejoice  in  this  forcing  of  the  ideal  upon  the  con 
sciousness  of  men.  He  will  guide  its  true  strivings.  He  will 
ignore  its  pitiful  weaknesses.  On  the  one  hand  that  —  on  the 
other  socialism  has  a  meaning  for  the  industrial  order.  To  many 
it  seems  as  if  that  meaning  lies  in  the  abolition  of  private  prop 
erty,  and  the  complete  control  of  the  individual  life  by  the  state. 
I  venture  to  think  that  although  that  is  the  programme  of  social 
ism,  the  ideal  which  it  is  seeking  thus  blindly  may  be  expressed 
in  a  very  different  way.  What  socialism  sees  —  and  here  the 
idealist  must  agree  with  him  —  is  that  democracy  cannot  be 
realized  until  in  the  industrial  order  as  in  the  political  the  same 
relation  between  men,  that  is  to  say  equality,  is  established.  You 
establish  equality  towards  government  by  giving  each  man  a 
vote.  But  the  share  in  government  differs.  To  some  more, 
to  some  less;  but  each  in  the  same  relation.  The  socialist  ideal 
as  distinguished  from  its  programme  is  that  the  same  thing  must 
exist  in  industry.  The  division  into  owners  and  wage-earners 
must  gradually  be  done  away.  In  every  industry  the  relation 
of  each  man  to  the  whole  must  be  the  same.  All  owners,  all 
workmen.  Idle  ownership  squandering  its  millions  must  cease. 
Precarious  wage-earning  must  cease.  To  him  who  in  the  com- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  A  PROPHETIC  IDEALISM       391 

mon  industry  contributes  much,  be  it  in  brains  or  work  or 
wealth,  much  shall  be  given  • —  each  in  his  own  degree  —  but 
each  in  the  same  way. 

Whether  or  not  I  have  touched  at  all  upon  this  elusive  essence, 
time  will  show;  but  my  point  as  to  the  attitude  of  the  prophetic 
idealist  will  be  clear  if  I  add  a  word  as  to  what  he  will  do  prac 
tically.  If  he  is  right  he  will  take  every  opportunity  to  discour 
age  a  leisure  class,  to  encourage  a  sense  of  ownership  upon  the 
part  of  wage-earners;  that  is,  to  give  them  the  sense  of  property 
in  the  industry  or  occupation  in  which  they  have  a  part.  Such 
remedial  steps  as  profit-sharing  and  sliding  scales  which  reward 
long  service,  will  meet  his  support.  He  will  try  in  all  economic 
and  political  questions  to  throw  his  weight  to  the  working  out  of 
this  ideal,  —  the  democracy  of  industry  following  the  democracy 
of  politics.  In  this,  as  in  any  other  problem,  his  method  of  ap 
proach  is  to  find  the  meaning  of  it,  its  relation  to  the  ideal,  and 
then  with  flexible  programme  and  no  abstract  principles,  to  take 
advantage  of  every  opportunity  to  further  that  which  will  unveil 
to  men  the  ideal. 

This  may  be  well  illustrated  again  by  the  question  of  suffrage 
and  the  consent  of  the  governed.  The  prophetic  idealist  has 
no  abstract  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man.  He  has  no  such  doc 
trine  because  he  is  absolutely  sure  of  the  fundamental  relations 
of  men.  He  can  quite  understand  that  (granting  the  responsi 
bility  resting  upon  this  nation)  the  fulness  of  self-government 
cannot  be  at  once  conferred  upon  our  so-called  colonial  posses 
sions.  But  he  can  also  see  that  those  theories  which,  alas,  have 
been  decided  to  be  the  law  of  the  land,  and  according  to  which 
the  nation  has  indefinite  right  of  sovereignty  and  control  quite 
apart  from  the  purpose  of  ultimate  erection  of  its  dependencies 
into  self-governing  States,  are  utterly  subversive  of  the  eternal 
meaning  of  democracy.  If  this  nation  is  to  be  the  first  messenger 
of  the  new  social  democracy  to  the  world,  she  must  put  such 
theories  behind.  She  must  arise  in  her  clear  vision  of  the  ideal 
and  assert  her  old-time  faith.  Only  upon  the  consent  of  the 
governed  can  a  national  life  rest.  Let  him  who  will  take  the  noble 
words  and  prick  their  life  out.  To  the  idealist  they  stand  as  one 
great  affirmation  of  the  ideal  which  abides  forever. 

Thus  the  idealist  understands  his  principles.    Thus  he  sug- 


392  EDWARD  LAMBE  PARSONS 

gests  his  methods  of  approach  to  the  problems  of  democracy. 
And  thus  he  discovers  to  the  world  a  new  standard  of  values. 
May  I,  in  closing,  speak  a  few  moments  of  that  standard  of 
values,  for  it  brings  us  to  that  most  vital  point  in  the  considera 
tion  of  democracy,  the  question  of  liberty. 

The  supreme  worth  to  the  idealist  is  the  individual  soul  or 
the  things  which  belong  to  the  soul  life.  In  that  he  is  again  but 
giving  philosophical  expression  to  the  eternal  message  of  Chris 
tianity.  In  all  his  problems  he  sees  the  man  as  the  end.  "  In 
prince  or  peasant,  slave  or  lord"  he  sees  the  man.  Pomp  and 
privilege  in  others  nor  comfort  and  indulgent  desire  in  self  can 
blind  his  eye  to  the  man.  The  soul  of  one  man  is  in  his  eye 
supremely  more  worthful  than  the  properties  of  any  corporation. 
He  estimates  all  values  by  this  standard.  He  sees  that  all  ques 
tions  of  property  must  be  settled  ultimately  by  the  relation  to 
the  one  question  of  man's  higher  development.  He  is  not 
affrighted  by  the  cry  of  vested  rights  endangered,  because  he 
knows  that  in  God's  universe  no  man  has  any  vested  right 
beyond  that  of  keeping  his  soul  clean  before  God  and  in  minister 
ing  love  towards  his  fellow-men.  His  whole  conception  of  prop 
erty  is  bound  up  in  trust  and  service.  He  seerns  to  see  as  he 
reflects  upon  the  great  changes  of  the  years  gone  by,  remember 
ing  the  common  lands  of  his  forefathers,  remembering  the  shift 
ing  doctrines  of  property  and  the  changing  habits  even  from  the 
early  days  of  Rome  to  our  own,  —  he  seems  to  see  that  all  have 
been  conditioned  by  their  relations  to  the  highest  life  of  man. 
There  is  nothing  fixed  <ibout  the  whole  evolution  except  that 
any  theory  or  practice  which  impairs  the  true  life  of  large  num 
bers  of  men  must  ultimately  fail.  Do  not  mistake  me.  I  am  not 
making  a  plea  for  the  abolition  of  private  property.  I  am  merely 
pointing  out  that  the  idealist  looks  through  property  to  the  man 
and  sees  the  justification  of  property  only  in  its  service  to  man. 
And  thus  he  realizes  a  profounder  concept  of  liberty.  If  you  run 
over  the  first  chapter  of  that  book  of  Lecky's,  to  which  I  have 
referred,  you  will  see  that  the  liberty  of  which  he  is  thinking 
when  he  asks  concerning  the  fruits  of  democracy  is  largely  a 
liberty  of  holding  property  and  doing  what  one  will  with  one's 
own.  The  lauded  representative  character  of  the  pre-reformed 
Parliament  of  England  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  represents  prop- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  A  PROPHETIC  IDEALISM       393 

erty.  That  is  a  common  notion.  Commoner  still  is  the  confu 
sion  of  liberty  with  doing  as  one  pleases,  on  which  conception 
Matthew  Arnold  let  play  his  satire  with  such  effect.  But  the 
idealist  sees  that  true  liberty  lies  in  identifying  one's  own  inter 
ests  with  those  of  all,  because  in  the  ideal  world  there  is  no  other 
possible  liberty  than  that  complete  subordination  of  one's  self 
to  God  and  the  whole  body  of  free  souls.  He  sees  that  true 
liberty  is  not  curtailed  when  property  rights  are  curtailed  for 
the  benefit  of  all.  If  private  property  must  be  sold  that  a  rail 
road  go  through  and  the  public  be  served,  what  difference  is 
there  in  principle  that  all  the  operations  of  the  railroad  be 
public  and  its  profits  go  to  the  people  who  give  its  franchise  as 
well  as  to  the  stockholders?  What  —  to  go  further  —  what  is 
it  that  the  men  of  the  future  shall  be  hedged  about  on  this  side 
and  on  that,  by  restrictions  and  directions  in  ways  that  seem 
utterly  arbitrary  to  us  of  to-day?  It  is  not  the  true  liberty  of 
civilized  man  which  is  infringed.  It  is  that  spurious  liberty 
which  belonged  to  the  forest  ranger  of  our  earlier  national  Me. 
True  liberty  consists  in  not  wanting  for  ourselves  that  which  we 
will  not  grant  to  all.  It  is  entering  into  the  common  life,  putting 
aside  special  privileges,  denying  ambitions  of  indulgence  or  of 
power;  ready,  not  only  to  serve  for  the  common  weal,  aye,  but 
to  suffer  as  well.  You  remember  Lowell's  noble  words,  — 

"No!  True  freedom  is  to  share 
All  the  chains  our  brothers  wear, 
And  with  heart  and  hand  to  be 
Earnest  to  make  others  free." 

It  matters  not  whether  it  be  the  slavery  of  cotton-field  and 
overseer's  lash,  or  that  of  factory  and  slaughter-house  where  the 
scourge  is  pinching  poverty  and  the  terror  of  the  "lost  job." 

Here  follows,  too,  upon  the  supreme  value  of  the  soul-life  the 
liberty  of  reward.  It  is  complained  that  too  many  social  ideals 
and  too  many  present-day  policies  rob  men  of  the  liberty  of  re 
ward  commensurate  with  great  service.  But  I  ask  you,  is  man 
so  tangled  in  the  flesh,  so  trammelled  in  the  matter  of  the  world, 
that  he  cannot  shake  himself  free,  but  must  condition  his  highest 
activity  upon  gain  of  gold  and  power?  So  political  economy  has 
falsely  thought,  with  experience  of  ideal  revolts  staring  her  in 
the  face.  So  good  men,  high  in  purpose,  teach  to-day  unmindful 


394  EDWARD  LAMBE  PARSONS 

of  their  own  unpaid  service.  But  no  idealist  dare  think  so.  No 
prophetic  idealist  will  so  approach  the  problems  of  his  age.  He 
knows  that  the  eternal  reward  is  in  the  eternal  soul  values,  that 
where  these  lie  open  to  men  (and  the  gates  of  heaven  are  never 
closed)  men  will  seek  and  strive  and  work  and  suffer  and  rejoice, 
and  in  it  all  find  liberty.  Less  and  less  will  their  souls  revolt  from 
hampering  restrictions,  for  more  and  more  will  they  know  true 
liberty  in  the  common  life,  the  identification  of  self-interest  with 
the  interests  of  all. 

Is  there  any  more  urgent  need  to-day  for  the  prophet's  work 
than  just  that  he  shall  reveal  to  the  world  this  ideal  of  freedom  — 
freedom  of  property,  freedom  of  reward?  After  all,  his  whole 
message,  his  whole  understanding  of  his  mission,  sums  up  in  that. 
It  is  the  last  word.  What  is  his  democracy  if  it  bring  not  liberty? 
What  is  his  method  if  it  lead  not  to  liberty?  What  is  his  valuing 
of  a  soul  if  it  mean  not  that  the  soul  shall  be  free?  But  what, 
once  more,  is  this  liberty  which  he  would  win  if  it  be  not  the  free 
dom  to  look  beyond  the  trammelling  and  cloying  and  glutting 
satisfactions  of  sense  into  the  world  of  the  ideal,  freedom  to  live 
in  that  world,  freedom  to  strive  for  a  liberty  in  this  world  such 
as  alone  can  last,  the  liberty  of  the  democracy  of  God,  where  a 
man's  soul  counts  first,  and  all  else  counts  as  nothing. 

Liberty!  It  is  his  unswerving  faith.  Liberty  is  approached  in 
the  actual  republic  of  men,  as  the  actual  bears  likeness  to  the 
eternal  republic  of  God,  where  no  spirit  thinks  of  other  destiny 
than  to  will  as  God  wills  and  to  serve  the  whole  republic. 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  SCHOLAR 

BY  EDWIN  AUGUSTUS  GROSVENOR 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  North  Carolina,  at  the  University  of 
North  Carolina,  May  29,  1909. 

I  COUNT  it  a  privilege  and  an  honor  to  stand  upon  this  plat 
form  and  be  welcomed  as  the  guest  of  this  University. 

Nowhere  can  the  patriot  and  the  American  feel  more  at  home 
than  upon  the  historic  soil  of  the  Old  North  State.  Between 
North  Carolina  and  New  England  always  has  there  existed  a 
special  bond.  The  two  were  founded  by  men  of  equally  earnest 
purpose  and  lofty  ideas.  Lexington,  Concord,  Bennington,  are 
the  northern  synonyms  of  Mecklenburg,  the  Cowpens,  and 
King's  Mountain.  In  all  the  subsequent  years  the  children  of 
North  Carolina  and  New  England  have  been  faithful  to  the 
right,  as  God  gave  them  to  see  the  right,  and  have  performed 
their  part  manfully  and  well.  In  this  academic  centre,  on  this 
classic  hill,  where  for  generations  heroism  and  consecration  have 
set  their  seal  upon  the  brow  of  learning,  the  stranger,  like  them 
of  old  in  an  exalted  presence,  may  well  repeat,  It  is  good  for  us 
to  be  here. 

The  subject  on  which  I  desire  to  speak  is,  THE  ATTITUDE  OF 
THE  SCHOLAR. 

It  is  a  subject  of  peculiar  interest  to  the  company  which  by 
its  presence  graces  and  dignifies  this  hall.  It  is  a  subject,  appro 
priate  at  any  gathering  of  our  fraternity  and  deserving  the  can 
did  consideration  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa  men.  But  its  selection  has 
been  determined  in  my  mind  by  a  stronger  motive  than  the  mere 
matter  of  fitness  or  the  possible  interest  attaching  to  its  discus 
sion.  Concerning  the  attitude  of  the  scholar:  his  attitude 
towards  a  never  stationary  but  an  always  moving  world;  toward 
mental  conditions,  never  permanent  or  fixed  but  always  in  course 
of  modification  and  change;  toward  innovation  and  revolution 
in  educational  method  and  subject  and  process;  toward  the 
transformation,  partial  or  entire,  of  studential  life  through  its 


396  EDWIN  AUGUSTUS  GROSVENOR 

manifold  development  —  there  are  several  certain  things  that 
may  well  be  said.  Nor  can  one  conceive  a  more  becoming  place 
in  which  to  say  them  than  in  this  presence  of  the  studious  and 
learned,  of  great  teachers,  of  men  of  international  influence  and 
fame,  and  of  youth  enthusiastic,  ardent,  dreaming  the  dreams  of 
a  high  ambition,  the  foot  advanced  toward  a  resplendent  future. 
Theodore,  the  Metochite,  died  at  Constantinople  near  the 
close  of  the  thirteenth  century.  His  exploits  have  so  faded  from 
the  minds  of  men,  that,  even  in  this  scholarly  company,  the 
mention  of  his  name  evokes  little  association.  Yet  in  rank  at  the 
Byzantine  court  he  was  second  only  to  the  emperor,  and  in 
variety  and  immensity  of  learning  he  was  the  foremost  in  a  city, 
then  the  most  refined  and  cultivated  city  in  the  world.  His  asso 
ciates  and  disciples  carved  this  inscription  upon  his  tomb :  — 

This  man  was  in  learning  the  glory  of  mortals.  Weep  aloud,  heav 
enly  Muses.  This  man  is  dead.  With  him  all  learning  has  died  also. 

I  take  it  that  the  survivors  who  composed  this  epitaph  were 
sincere.  I  believe  the  epitaph  was  without  exaggeration  the  hon 
est  expression  of  their  discouragement  and  dismay.  When  he, 
their  glory,  their  central  sun,  their  source  of  inspiration,  had 
departed,  what  was  there  left?  To  them  all  learning  had  died 
also.  Yet  to  us  how  non-existent  is  the  man  they  mourned,  less 
substantial  than  a  shadow,  fainter  than  an  echo,  less  real  than 
a  memory. 

Like  those  mediaeval  scholars  around  the  tomb  of  Theodore 
the  Metochite,  so  in  other  ages  men  have  stood,  lamenting  at 
what  they  deemed  was  the  burial-place  of  learning.  With  the 
same  dull  thud  the  sods  fell  upon  Aristotle,  Erigena,  Erasmus, 
Newton,  Bentley,  Porson,  and  upon  the  still  forms  of  the  many 
more,  who  in  various  lands  and  countries  were  esteemed  the 
incarnation  of  science,  and  letters  and  philosophy,  themselves 
magna  decora  seculorum.  Of  their  once  radiant  names  a  few  are 
still  distinct  and  luminous;  the  great  majority  are  lost  in  oblivion, 
or  can  be  faintly  puzzled  out  in  the  graveyard  of  time.  But  the 
intellectual  world  has  none  the  less  sped  on;  a  sunshine  no  less 
bright  has  constantly  lit  the  intellectual  sky;  and  the  step  of 
eternal  intellectual  progress  has  not  ceased  to  beat.  There  has 
been  neither  reversal,  nor  paralysis,  nor  delay. 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  SCHOLAR  397 

Like  the  mediaeval  scholars  around  the  tomb  of  Theodore  the 
Metochite,  to-day  some  stand,  lamenting,  one  the  dethronement 
of  the  classic  Greek  from  its  old-time  primacy,  one  the  welcome 
well-nigh  universally  accorded  to  the  elective  system,  one  the 
incorporation  of  activities  outside  the  class-room  into  the  stu 
dent's  life.  Bewildered  at  the  subsidence  of  the  accredited  and 
the  old,  and  at  the  inrush  to  the  contemporaneous  and  the  new, 
more  than  one  man  hah*  audibly  repeats:  All  learning  has  died 
also. 

No  other  language,  comparable  to  the  Greek,  has  the  art  or 
experience  of  man  devised  since  the  world  began.  In  shaded 
definiteness  of  expression,  in  capacity  to  sound  every  note  of  the 
human  soul,  in  vibrating  variety  of  grace  and  pathos  and  satire, 
all  other  languages  have  followed  the  Greek,  as  the  disciples  did 
their  master,  afar  off.  It  is  a  truism  that  the  masterpieces  of 
Greek  philosophy  and  history  have  in  all  ages  since  rarely  been 
approached,  and  never  been  surpassed.  But  how  much  of  this 
priceless  wealth,  except  as  the  teacher  told  him,  did  the  student 
realize  or  even  know,  plodding  laboriously  through  lexicon  and 
grammar? 

I  recall  a  square,  low-studded  room,  a  few  maps  and  engrav 
ings  upon  the  dingy  walls,  in  Johnson  chapel,  at  Amherst 
College.  Back  of  the  desk  sat  the  greatest  teacher  that  I  have 
ever  known.  Before  us  boys  the  dead  corpse  of  a  dead  language 
arose,  wreathed  in  life  and  beauty  at  his  touch.  But  only  the 
king  could  draw  Excalibur  from  its  sheath.  At  least  in  our  study 
of  the  Greek  the  inspiration  was  flashed  less  from  the  matchless 
tongue  than  from  the  tongue  of  the  matchless  teacher. 

Eliminating  the  factor  of  the  man  at  the  desk,  recognizing  the 
rudimentary  knowledge  of  the  student,  confessing  that  all  teach 
ers  are  not  profoundly  gifted,  it  is  difficult  to  discern  wherein  the 
study  of  Latin  or  Italian  or  German  or  French  is  not  as  stimu 
lating  and  productive  in  the  ordinary  class-room  as  the  study  of 
Greek. 

The  elective  system  in  determination  of  courses  is  attended 
by  the  fallibility  and  imperfection  of  all  things  human.  But  it  is 
far  preferable  to  the  stern  system  of  our  sires,  whereby  the  mind 
was  driven  through  an  iron  groove  with  no  volition  of  its  own. 
Capacity  of  rational  choice  distinguishes  the  man  from  the  brute. 


398  EDWIN  AUGUSTUS  GROSVENOR 

That  the  student  exercise  decision  is  more  important  than  that 
his  decision  be  wise.  Granted  the  fullest  freedom,  not  always 
will  he  choose  that  which  is  best.  But  in  the  very  act  of  choosing, 
he  is  ennobled;  he  is  made  more  manly  by  the  dignity  and  re 
sponsibility  of  choice. 

Under  the  former  system  were  developed  teachers,  physicists, 
and  jurists,  theologians,  men  of  business  and  affairs,  men  of 
patriotism  and  thought  and  action.  Under  the  present  system 
with  confidence  we  look  for  the  same  result  in  no  inferior  measure. 
To  education,  as  in  all  the  work  of  humanity  the  same  principle 
applies.  No  one  custom  is  eternally  supreme. 

"For  God  fulfills  himself  in  many  ways 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world." 

During  these  later  years  the  college  has  experienced  an  inva 
sion  from  what  are  called  outside  interests.  The  scholastic  mon 
astery  with  its  cloisters,  wherein  our  fathers  burned  midnight 
oil  in  pursuit  of  a  diploma,  has  become  a  village  or  city  in  which 
young  men  reside.  Not  the  elective  system  but  the  inrush  of 
activities,  unconnected  with  the  class-room,  has  transformed 
under-graduate  life.  These  activities  are  multifarious,  numerous, 
and  all-pervading.  They  are  of  every  sort,  aesthetic,  athletic, 
fraternal,  inter-collegiate,  literary,  philanthropic,  political, 
religious,  social.  Their  performance  is  attended  not  only  by 
satisfaction  and  pleasure,  but  by  a  sense  of  obligation  and 
responsibility.  They  divide  attention  with  the  routine  of  a  daily 
lecture  or  lesson.  Their  discharge  necessitates  frequent  absence 
from  college,  especially  on  the  part  of  upper-classmen.  There  is 
no  question  that  in  themselves  those  activities  are  legitimate 
and  helpful,  often  disciplinary,  largely  educational,  and  in  gen 
eral  of  benefit.  But  against  their  exercise  the  serious  argument 
may  be  urged  that  they  trespass  upon  class-room  work,  that 
they  exact  an  undue  proportion  of  the  student's  strength  and 
time,  and  that  parents,  when  sending  their  sons  to  college,  have 
no  such  activities  in  view.  This  argument  it  is  not  my  purpose 
to  either  confirm  or  refute.  This  however  must  be  said.  Those 
activities  are  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  age.  As  long  as 
the  age  desires  them  they  will  constitute  an  integral  part  of  col 
lege  life.  I,  at  least,  would  not  enter  a  son  of  mine  or,  if  the 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  SCHOLAR  399 

halcyon  period  of  youth  returned,  would  I  wish  to  enter  myself 
as  a  student  in  any  institution  where  such  activities  were  not 
found. 

Sometimes  the  eye  is  jaundiced  by  disappointment,  age  or 
disease.  Then,  as  to  the  mediaeval  sages  at  the  tomb  of  Theodore 
the  Metochite,  it  seems  as  if  all  learning  had  died  also. 

Last  week  I  received  a  letter  from  a  venerable  and  venerated 
alumnus  of  my  own  college.  Toward  the  close  he  wrote:  "I  seri 
ously  suspect  that  Amherst  is  not  what  it  was  forty  or  fifty  years 
ago.  In  general  it  seems  to  me  that  the  spirit  and  philosophy  of 
all  our  colleges  has  changed."  There  was  a  certain  subtle,  selfish 
comfort  in  the  thought  that  by  this  all,  he  included  every  other 
institution  in  the  land,  even  the  far-famed  University  of  North 
Carolina  to  which  I  was  going.  He  continued,  "The  spirit  of 
self-sacrifice  and  devotion  to  study  has  given  way  to  a  contrary 
ambition,  the  pursuit  of  amusement  and  pleasure."  Then  in 
conclusion  came  the  climax.  "Were  the  teaching  of  present 
professors  wiser,  would  such  be  the  outcome  of  their  teaching?" 
Thus  were  summarized  and  rebuked  the  teacher  and  student  of 
to-day.  Doubtless  a  longer  letter  would  have  embraced  univer 
sity  presidents,  boards  of  overseers,  or  visitors  or  trustees,  and 
all  the  alumni  of  the  last  twenty-five  years  in  a  common  con 
demnation. 

Not  long  ago,  after  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  banquet,  I  listened  to  an 
elaborate  address  of  the  president  of  a  well-known  university. 
The  institution,  of  which  he  was  the  head,  had  in  the  past  given 
to  the  nation  its  full  share  of  illustrious  men.  Doubtless  some  of 
its  present  under-graduates  are  to  become  equally  beneficent  and 
renowned.  But  through  the  speech  of  that  eminent  president 
breathed  only  the  doctrine  of  scholarly  despair.  He  said:  "I 
have  been  laboring  under  the  conviction  for  a  long  time  that  the 
object  of  a  university  is  to  educate,  and  I  have  not  seen  the  uni 
versities  of  this  country  achieving  any  remarkable  or  disturbing 
success  in  that  direction.  ...  I  have  found  everywhere  ...  a 
note  of  apology  for  the  intellectual  side  of  the  university  .  .  . 
learning  is  on  the  defensive,  is  actually  on  the  defensive  among 
college  men."  I  know  not  which  should  be  deprecated  the  more, 
the  sentiment  herein  expressed  or  the  cynicism  of  the  utterance. 
On  the  lips  of  a  prominent  teacher  and  distinguished  author, 


400  EDWIN  AUGUSTUS  GROSVENOR 

both  the  sentiment  and  the  cynicism  are  unnatural  and  un 
worthy.  Sleeplessness  by  night  or  a  disordered  physical  system 
must  be  responsible  for  such  a  distorted  vision.  Instead  of  a 
paean  he  sounded  a  threnody;  instead  of  a  note  of  courage,  a 
lament.  Not  with  dirges  but  with  bugle  calls  and  beating  drums 
are  men  sent  into  battle. 

One  of  old  time  has  said :  In  much  wisdom  is  much  grief,  and 
he  that  increaseth  knowledge  increaseth  sorrow. 

Helen  Hunt  Jackson  voices  the  same  truth  in  the  query 
whether 

"The  mark  of  rank  in  nature 

Is  capacity  for  pain, 
And  the  anguish  of  the  singer 

Makes  the  sweetness  of  the  strain." 

He  who  knows  the  most  realizes  the  infinity  of  knowledge 
which  he  can  never  know.  From  each  peak  scaled  unfolds  a 
horizon,  ever  expanding,  always  more  difficult  to  grasp.  The 
standard  of  measurement  rises  faster  than  the  rate  of  progress. 
Nor  can  full  satisfaction  be  attained  from  the  accomplishments 
of  other  men.  Effort  on  their  behalf  is  beaten  back,  baffled  and 
vain.  They  who  do  the  best  might  do  so  much  better.  They  who 
achieve  the  most  might  achieve  so  much  more.  Surely  the  people 
is  grass.  And  the  goodliness  thereof  is  as  the  flower  of  the  field. 
The  difference  between  the  highest  and  the  lowest,  between  the 
wisest  and  the  most  brutish,  is  after  all  but  the  difference  be 
tween  blades  of  grass. 

The  scholar  is  naturally  a  conservative.  No  other  body  of  men 
is  by  tradition  and  training  so  conservative  as  a  college  faculty. 
Each  college  faculty  moves  along  a  path,  every  foot  of  which 
has  been  noted  by  the  long  experience  of  wise  and  virtuous  pre 
decessors.  Not  chance  or  conjecture  but  long  experience  has 
determined  what  and  how  much  is  of  value,  and  of  how  much 
value  upon  the  way.  Indications  are  supplied,  as  along  the 
trolley  tracks  of  a  country  road,  of  where  to  go  slow,  where  to 
turn  out,  where  to  stop.  Should  any  one  question  these  weighty 
judgments  of  long  experience,  he  might  be  charged  with  rashness 
and  irreverence.  The  presumption  always  lies  against  the  intro 
duction  of  any  additional  factor.  Upon  the  claim  of  recognition 
of  some  new  factor  must  rest  the  burden  of  proof.  It  is  an  indis- 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  SCHOLAR  401 

putable  fact  that  no  device  of  man  is  confronted  by  greater  diffi 
culty  of  readjustment  than  is  a  college  curriculum.  Possilization 
rather  than  recrystallization  would  appear  to  be  the  inevitable 
result. 

The  common  sense  of  the  American  educator  has  been  stronger 
than  his  logic.  Or  in  better  words,  the  logic  of  circumstances  has 
been  too  mighty  for  the  logic  of  theory;  and  the  logic  of  theory 
has  had  to  bow. 

This  was  the  less  difficult  in  that  in  America  the  college  and 
the  state  were  alike  young.  They  grew  up  almost  side  by  side. 
The  heart  of  the  college,  despite  the  seeming  austerity  of  its 
mien,  beat  responsive  to  the  demands  of  the  hour.  Old  courses 
of  instruction  were  modified  or  discarded,  new  subjects  were 
introduced  and  expanded,  every  rising  want  was  supplied  with 
a  promptness  and  facility  unknown  in  any  other  country  on 
earth.  The  grip  of  transmitted  form  and  content  in  matters  of 
education  was  indeed  strong.  But  its  strength  was  weakness 
compared  with  the  mortmain  that  held  and  still  holds  the  schools 
and  seminaries  of  Europe  in  its  rigid  clutch.  With  the  hoary 
antiquity  and  majestic  aloofness  of  many  an  Old- World  univer 
sity,  no  American  institution  can  compare.  Those  gray  and 
hallowed  piles,  worn  by  the  feet  and  dimmed  by  the  dust  of 
uncounted  throngs  of  students  through  hundreds  of  years,  loom 
on  their  site  apart  from  the  living  nation  that  ebbs  and  flows 
outside.  Their  time-hallowed  formularies  are  slow  to  change. 
The  new  knocks  long  and  grows  old  in  knocking  before  it  finds 
acceptance  upon  the  roll. 

The  glory  of  the  American  college  and  of  the  American  schol 
arship  is  not  the  refinement  and  culture,  which  the  college  devel 
ops  and  which  that  scholarship  displays.  It  is  not  the  splendor 
and  luxury  of  the  lecture-rooms  and  libraries  wherein  that 
scholarship  is  nursed.  It  is  not  the  erudition  of  its  teachers 
though  that  erudition  be  profound.  These  things  are  indeed 
precious  but  they  do  not  constitute  its  crown.  The  distinctive 
features  of  American  scholarship  are  its  readiness  to  receive,  its 
facility  to  adapt,  and  its  many-sided  breadth.  These  three  are 
the  inheritance  of  the  American  scholar  which  the  American 
college  has  bequeathed  him.  To  an  equal  birthright  the  alumnus 
of  no  foreign  institution  is  the  heir.  Herein  is  the  American  col- 


402  EDWIN  AUGUSTUS  GROSVENOR 

lege  unique.  In  disposition  and  ability  to  confer  such  bequest 
the  American  college  stands  alone. 

Guided  by  the  college  hand,  suffused  by  the  college  spirit,  eye- 
moistened  by  the  college  memories,  the  scholar  advances  upon 
the  stage.  He  has  made  his  own  the  immortal  dictum  of  the 
Latin  master,  nihil  humanum  alienum  a  me  puto.  With  sympa 
thies  broad  as  the  race,  free  from  suspicion  and  without  guile, 
welcoming  the  good  from  whatsoever  source  it  comes,  ready  for 
each  emergency  as  it  arises,  he  stands  forth  in  the  light  of  heaven, 
God-fearing,  man-serving,  self-confident,  and  serene. 

Such  then  is  the  attitude  of  the  scholar.  Such  then  should  be 
the  attitude  above  all  of  every  Phi  Beta  Kappa  man. 

The  fraternity  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa  was  founded  more  than  a 
hundred  and  thirty  years  ago  at  Williamsburg  in  Virginia  by  five 
great-hearted  students  of  that  world-honored  institution,  the 
College  of  William  and  Mary.  Aspiration  for  achievement  in 
noble  service  prompted  their  intimate  union.  Though  the  years 
have  piled  upon  it,  and  it  has  now  become  the  monopoly  of  the 
distinguished  and  the  learned,  Phi  Beta  Kappa  in  the  dom 
inant  motive  of  its  association  remains  the  same  as  at  its  begin 
ning. 

"Self-reverence,  self-knowledge,  self-control, 
These  three  alone  lead  life  to  sovereign  power. 
Yet  not  for  power  (power  of  herself 
Would  come  uncalled  for)  but  to  live  by  law, 
Acting  the  law  we  live  by  without  fear; 
And,  because  right  is  right,  to  follow  right, 
Were  wisdom  in  the  scorn  of  consequence." 

These  words,  breathed  by  Tennyson  upon  the  lips  of  Pallas, 
are  the  expression  of  its  soul. 

Election  to  membership  in  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  is  an  honor, 
whether  conferred  upon  under-graduate  college  student  or  upon 
man  or  woman  reckoned  eminent  by  the  world.  And  yet,  let  not 
the  fraternity,  and  let  not  one  of  its  chapters,  be  regarded  by 
others  or  regard  itself  as  a  mere  honor  society.  Let  its  roster 
never  serve  as  a  mere  catalogue  of  past  and  finished  individual 
distinctions,  great  or  small.  Let  it  not  merely  record  the  name, 
but  stimulate  the  energies  of  each  initiate.  Let  no  one  of  its  sons 
and  daughters  rest  content  in  the  contemplation  of  that  he  has 
already  done.  In  it  let  there  be  no  place  for  pedantry  or  arro- 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  SCHOLAR  403 

gance  or  self-conceit.  Over  it  let  the  spirit  of  aspiration  and 
reverence  and  humility  continually  abide. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  sons  of  this  institution  need  no  words 
of  encouragement  from  a  stranger,  though  that  stranger  be  a 
friend.  But  this  is  Senior  Class  Day. 

The  Phi  Beta  Kappa  exercises  of  this  hour  are  buttressed  be 
tween  preceding  and  succeeding  exercises  of  the  Senior  Class. 
As  to  departing  soldiers  we  would  stretch  out  our  hands  and  call 
for  the  cheer.  On  every  member  of  the  class  of  1909, 1  invoke  all 
prosperity  and  success,  assured  that  in  the  years  to  come,  as  now, 
theirs  will  ever  be  the  attitude  of  the  scholar. 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY? 

BY  JOSIAH   ROYCE 

Delivered  before  the  Mu  of  New  York,  at  Vassar  College,  in  1909.  From  Wil 
liam  James  and  Other  Essays  on  the  Philosophy  of  Life.  Copyright,  1911,  by  The 
Macmillan  Company. 

I  DO  not  venture  to  meet  this  company  as  one  qualified  to 
preach,  nor  yet  as  an  authority  in  matters  which  are  technically 
theological.  My  contribution  is  intended  to  present  some 
thoughts  that  have  interested  me  as  a  student  of  philosophy. 
I  hope  that  one  or  another  of  these  thoughts  may  aid  others  in 
formulating  their  own  opinions,  and  in  defining  their  own  reli 
gious  interests,  whether  these  interests  and  opinions  are  or  are 
not  in  agreement  with  mine. 

My  treatment  of  the  question,  What  is  vital  in  Christianity? 
will  involve  a  study  of  three  different  special  questions,  which  I 
propose  to  discuss  in  order,  as  follows :  — 

1.  What  sort  of  faith  or  of  practice  is  it  that  can  be  called 
vital  to  any  religion?  That  is,  By  what  criteria,  in  the  case  of 
any  religion,  can  that  which  is  vital  be  distinguished  from  that 
which  is  not  vital? 

2.  In  the  light  of  the  criteria  established  by  answering  this 
first  question,  what  are  to  be  distinguished  as  the  vital  elements 
of  Christianity? 

3.  What  permanent  value,  and  in  particular  what  value  for  us 
to-day,  have  those  ideas  and  practices  and  religious  attitudes 
which  we  should  hold  to  be  vital  for  Christianity? 


The  term  "vital,"  as  here  used,  obviously  involves  a  certain 
metaphor.  That  is  vital  for  a  living  organism  without  which 
that  organism  cannot  live.  So  breathing  is  a  vital  affair  for  us  all. 
That  is  vital  for  an  organic  type  which  is  so  characteristic  of  that 
type  that,  were  such  vital  features  changed,  the  type  in  question, 
if  not  altogether  destroyed,  would  be  changed  into  what  is  essen 
tially  another  type.  Thus  the  contrast  between  gill  breathing 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY?  405 

and  lung  breathing  appears  to  be  vital  for  the  organic  types  in 
question.  When  we  treat  the  social  and  mental  life  which  is 
characteristic  of  a  religion  as  if  it  were  the  life  of  an  organism, 
or  of  a  type  or  group  of  organisms,  we  use  the  word  "vital"  in 
accordance  with  the  analogies  thus  indicated. 

If,  with  such  a  meaning  of  the  word  "vital,"  we  turn  to  the 
religions  that  exist  among  men,  we  find  that  any  religion  presents 
itself  to  an  observer  as  a  more  or  less  connected  group:  (1)  of 
religious  practices,  such  as  prayers,  ceremonies,  festivals,  rituals, 
and  other  observances,  and  (2)  of  religious  ideas,  the  ideas  taking 
the  form  of  traditions,  legends,  and  beliefs  about  the  gods  or 
about  spirits.  On  the  higher  levels,  the  religious  ideas  are  em 
bodied  in  sacred  books,  and  some  of  them  are  emphasized  in 
formal  professions  of  faith.  They  also  come,  upon  these  higher 
levels,  into  a  certain  union  with  other  factors  of  spiritual  life 
which  we  are  hereafter  to  discuss. 

Our  first  question  is,  naturally,  What  is  the  more  vital  about 
a  religion:  its  religious  practices,  or  its  religious  ideas,  beliefs, 
and  spiritual  attitudes? 

As  soon  as  we  attempt  to  answer  this  question,  our  procedure 
is  somewhat  different,  according  as  we  dwell  upon  the  simpler 
and  more  primitive,  or  on  the  other  hand  upon  the  higher  and 
more  reflective  and  differentiated  forms  or  aspects  of  religion. 

In  primitive  religions,  and  in  the  religious  lives  of  many  of  the 
more  simple-minded  and  less  reflective  people  of  almost  any 
faith,  however  civilized,  the  religious  practices  seem  in  general 
to  be  more  important,  and  more  vital  for  the  whole  structure  of 
the  religious  life,  than  are  the  conscious  beliefs  which  accompany 
the  practices.  I  say  this  is  true  of  primitive  religions  in  general. 
It  is  also  true  for  many  of  the  simple-minded  followers,  even 
of  very  lofty  religions.  This  rule  is  well  known  to  the  students 
of  the  history  of  religion  in  our  day,  and  can  easily  be  illustrated 
from  some  of  the  most  familiar  aspects  of  religious  life.  But  it  is  a 
rule  which,  as  I  frankly  confess,  has  frequently  been  ignored  or 
misunderstood  by  philosophers,  as  well  as  by  others  who  have 
been  led  to  approach  religions  for  the  sake  of  studying  the  opin 
ions  of  those  who  hold  them.  In  various  religious  ideas  people 
may  be  very  far  apart,  at  the  same  moment  when  their  religious 
practices  are  in  close  harmony.  In  the  world  at  large,  including 


406  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

both  the  civilized  and  the  uncivilized,  we  may  say  that  the  fol 
lowers  of  a  cult  are,  in  general,  people  who  accept  as  binding  the 
practices  of  that  cult.  But  the  followers  of  the  same  cult  may 
accompany  the  acceptance  of  the  cult  with  decidedly  different 
interpretations  of  the  reason  why  these  practices  are  required 
of  them,  and  of  the  supernatural  world  which  is  supposed  to  be 
interested  in  the  practices. 

In  primitive  religions  this  rule  is  exemplified  by  facts  which 
many  anthropologists  have  expressed  by  saying  that,  on  the 
whole,  in  the  order  of  evolution,  religious  practices  normally 
precede  at  least  the  more  definite  religious  beliefs.  Men  come  to 
believe  as  they  do  regarding  the  nature  of  some  supernatural 
being,  largely  in  consequence  of  the  fact  that  they  have  first 
come  to  follow  some  course  of  conduct,  not  for  any  conscious 
reason  at  all,  but  merely  from  some  instinctive  tendency  which 
by  accident  has  determined  this  or  that  special  expression.  When 
the  men  come  to  observe  this  custom  of  theirs,  and  to  consider 
why  they  act  thus,  some  special  religious  belief  often  arises  as  a 
sort  of  secondary  explanation  of  their  practice.  And  this  belief 
may  vary  without  essentially  altering  either  the  practice  or  the 
religion.  The  pigeons  in  our  college  yard  cluster  about  the  be 
nevolent  student  or  visitor  who  feeds  them.  This  clustering  is 
the  result  of  instinct  and  of  their  training  in  seeking  food.  The 
pigeons  presumably  have  no  conscious  ideas  or  theories  about 
the  true  nature  of  the  man  who  feeds  them.  Of  course,  they  are 
somehow  aware  of  his  presence,  and  of  what  he  does,  but  they 
surely  have  only  the  most  rudimentary  and  indefinite  germs  of 
ideas  about  what  he  is.  But  if  the  pigeons  were  to  come  to  con 
sciousness  somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  primitive  men,  very 
probably  they  would  regard  this  way  of  getting  food  as  a  sort  of 
religious  function  and  would  begin  to  worship  the  visitor  as  a 
kind  of  god.  If  they  did  so,  what  idea  about  this  god  would  be  to 
them  vital?  Would  their  beliefs  show  that  they  first  reasoned 
abstractly  from  effect  to  cause,  and  said,  "He  must  be  a  being 
both  powerful  and  benevolent,  for  otherwise  his  feeding  of  us 
in  this  way  could  not  be  explained"?  Of  course,  if  the  pigeons 
developed  into  theologians  or  philosophers,  they  might  reason 
thus.  But  if  they  came  to  self-consciousness  as  primitive  men 
generally  do,  they  would  more  probably  say  at  first:  "Behold, 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY?  467 

do  we  not  cluster  about  him  and  beg  from  him,  and  coo  to  him; 
and  do  we  not  get  our  food  by  doing  thus?  He  is,  then,  a  being 
whom  it  is  essentially  worth  while  to  treat  in  this  way.  He  re 
sponds  to  our  cooing  and  our  clustering.  Thus  we  compel  him 
to  feed  us.  Therefore  he  is  a  worshipful  being.  And  this  is  what 
we  mean  by  a  god;  namely,  some  one  whom  it  is  practically  use 
ful  to  conciliate  and  compel  by  such  forms  of  worship  as  we 
practice." 

If  one  passes  from  this  feigned  instance  to  the  facts  of  early 
religious  life,  one  easily  observes  illustrations  of  a  similar  process, 
both  in  children  and  in  the  more  primitive  religions  of  men.  A 
child  may  be  taught  to  say  his  prayers.  His  early  ideas  of  God 
as  a  giver  of  good  things,  or  as  a  being  to  be  propitiated,  are  then 
likely  to  be  secondary  to  such  behavior.  The  prayers  he  often 
says  long  before  he  sees  why.  His  elders,  at  least  when  they 
follow  the  older  traditions  of  religious  instruction,  begin  by 
requiring  of  him  the  practice  of  saying  prayers;  and  then  they 
gradually  initiate  the  child  into  the  ruling  ideas  of  what  the 
practice  means.  But  for  such  a  stage  of  religious  consciousness 
the  prayer  is  more  vital  than  the  interpretation.  In  primitive 
religions  taboo  and  ritual  alike  precede,  at  least  in  many  cases, 
those  explanations  of  the  taboos  and  of  the  ritual  practices 
which  inquirers  get  in  answer  to  questions  about  the  present 
beliefs  of  the  people  concerned.  As  religion  grows,  practices 
easily  pass  over  from  one  religion  to  another,  and  through  every 
such  transition  seem  to  preserve,  or  even  to  increase,  their 
sacredness;  but  they  get  in  the  end,  in  each  new  religion  into 
which  they  enter,  a  new  explanation  in  terms  of  opinions,  them 
selves  producing,  so  to  speak,  the  new  ideas  required  to  fit  them 
to  each  change  of  setting.  In  this  process  the  practices  taken 
over  may  come  to  seem  vital  to  the  people  concerned,  as  the 
Mass  does  to  Catholics.  But  the  custom  may  have  preceded  the 
idea.  The  Christmas  and  Easter  festivals  are  well-known  and 
classic  examples  of  this  process.  Christianity  did  not  initiate 
them.  It  assimilated  them.  But  it  then  explained  why  it  did  so 
by  saying  that  it  was  celebrating  the  birth  and  resurrection  of 
Christ. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  task  to  develop  at  length  a  general  theory 
about  this  frequent  primacy  of  religious  practice  over  the  defi- 


408  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

nite  formulation  of  religious  belief.  The  illustrations  of  the 
process  are,  however,  numerous.  Even  on  the  higher  levels  of 
religious  development,  where  the  inner  life  comes  to  be  empha 
sized,  the  matter  indeed  becomes  highly  complicated;  but  still, 
wherever  there  is  an  established  church,  the  term  "dissenter" 
often  means  in  popular  use  a  person  who  will  not  attend  this 
church,  or  who  will  not  conform  to  its  practices,  much  more 
consciously  and  decidedly  than  it  means  a  person  whose  private 
ideas  about  religious  topics  differ  from  those  of  the  people  with 
whom  he  is  willing  to  worship,  or  whose  rules  he  is  willing  to 
obey. 

Nevertheless,  upon  these  higher  levels  a  part  of  the  religious 
requirement  very  generally  comes  to  be  a  demand  for  some  sort 
of  orthodoxy.  And  therefore,  upon  this  level,  conformity  of 
practice  is  indeed  no  longer  enough.  However  the  simple-minded 
emphasize  practice,  the  religious  body  itself  requires  not  only 
the  right  practice,  but  also  the  acceptance  of  a  profession  of 
faith.  And  on  this  higher  level,  and  in  the  opinion  of  those  con 
cerned  with  the  higher  aspect  of  their  religion,  this  acceptance 
must  now  be  not  only  a  formal  act  but  a  sincere  one.  Here,  then, 
in  the  life  of  the  higher  religions,  belief  tends  to  come  into  a 
position  of  primacy  which  results  in  a  very  notable  contrast  be 
tween  the  higher  and  the  simpler  forms  and  aspects  of  religious 
life.  When  religions  take  these  higher  forms,  belief  is  at  least 
officially  emphasized  as  quite  equivalent  in  importance  to  prac 
tice.  For  those  who  view  matters  thus,  "He  that  believeth  not 
shall  be  damned,"  an  unbeliever  is,  as  such,  a  foe  of  the  religion 
in  question,  and  of  its  gods  and  of  its  worshippers.  As  an  infidel 
he  is  a  miscreant,  an  enemy  not  only  of  the  true  faith  but  per 
haps  of  mankind.  In  consequence,  religious  persecution  and 
religious  wars  may  come  to  seem,  at  least  for  a  time,  inevitable 
means  of  defending  the  faith.  And  those  who  outgrow,  or  who 
never  pass  through,  this  stage  of  warlike  propaganda  and  of 
persecution  may  still  insist  that  for  them  it  is  faith  rather  than 
practice  which  is  the  vital  element  of  their  religion.  To  what 
heights  such  a  view  of  the  religious  life  may  attain,  the  Pauline 
epistles  bear  witness,  "Through  grace  are  ye  saved."  And  grace 
comes  by  faith,  or  in  the  form  of  faith. 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY?  409 


II 

So  far,  then,  we  have  two  great  phases  or  stages  of  religious 
life.  On  the  one  stage  it  is  religious  practice;  as  such,  that  is  for 
the  people  concerned  the  more  vital  thing.  Their  belief  is  rela 
tively  secondary  to  their  practice,  and  may  considerably  vary, 
while  the  practice  remains  the  unvarying,  and,  for  them,  vital 
feature.  On  the  other,  and  no  doubt  higher,  because  more  self- 
conscious,  stage  it  is  faith  that  assumes  the  conscious  primacy. 
And  on  this  second  stage,  if  you  believe  not  rightly,  you  have  no 
part  in  the  religion  in  question.  That  these  two  stages  or  phases 
of  the  life  of  religion  are  in  practice  closely  intermingled,  every 
body  knows.  The  primitive  and  the  lofty  are,  in  the  religious  life 
of  civilized  men,  very  near  together.  The  resulting  entangle 
ments  furnish  endlessly  numerous  problems  for  the  religious  life. 
For  in  all  the  higher  faiths  those  who  emphasize  the  inner  life 
make  much  of  faith  as  a  personal  disposition.  And  this  emphasis, 
contending  as  it  does  with  the  more  primitive  and  simple- 
minded  tendency  to  lay  stress  upon  the  primacy  of  religious 
practice,  has  often  led  to  revolt  against  existing  formalism, 
against  ritual  requirements,  and  so  to  reforms,  to  heresies,  to 
sects,  or  to  new  world  religions.  Christianity  itself,  viewed  as  a 
world  religion,  was  the  outgrowth  of  an  emphasis  upon  a  certain 
faith,  to  which  its  new  practices  were  to  be,  and  were,  secondary. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  appeal  that  every  religion  makes  to  the 
masses  of  mankind  is  most  readily  interpreted  in  terms  of  prac 
tice.  Thus  the  baptism  of  a  whole  tribe  or  nation,  at  the  com 
mand  of  their  chief,  has  been  sometimes  accounted  conversion. 
A  formal  profession  of  a  creed  in  such  cases  has  indeed  become 
an  essential  part  of  the  requirements  of  the  religion  in  question. 
But  this  profession  itself  can  be  regarded,  and  often  is  regarded 
by  whole  masses  of  the  people  concerned,  as  a  ceremony  to  be 
performed  obediently,  and  no  doubt  willingly,  rather  than  as  an 
expression  of  any  highly  conscious  inner  conviction.  In  conse 
quence,  an  individual  worshipper  may  come  to  repeat  the  creed 
as  a  more  or  less  magic  charm,  to  ward  off  the  demons  who  are 
known  not  to  like  to  hear  it;  or,  again,  the  individual  may  rise 
and  say  the  creed  simply  because  the  whole  congregation  at  a 
certain  point  of  the  service  has  to  do  so. 


410  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

In  particular,  since  the  creeds  of  the  higher  faiths  relate  to 
what  are  regarded  as  mysteries,  while  the  creed  must  be  repeated 
by  all  the  faithful,  the  required  belief  in  the  creed  is  often  not 
understood  to  imply  any  clear  or  wise  or  even  intelligent  ideas 
about  what  the  creed  really  intends  to  teach.  Even  in  empha 
sizing  belief,  then,  one  may  thus  interpret  it  mainly  in  terms  of  a 
willing  obedience.  The  savage  converted  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  is  indeed  taught  not  only  to  obey,  but  to  profess  belief, 
and  as  far  as  possible  to  get  some  sort  of  genuine  inner  belief. 
But  he  is  regularly  told  that  for  his  imperfect  stage  of  insight  it 
is  enough  if  he  is  fully  ready  to  say,  "I  believe  what  the  church 
believes,  both  as  far  as  I  understand  what  the  church  believes 
and  also  as  far  as  I  do  not  understand  what  the  church  believes." 
And  it  is  in  this  spirit  that  he  must  repeat  the  creed  of  the  church. 
But  his  ideas  about  God  and  the  world  may  meanwhile  be  as 
crude  as  his  ignorance  determines.  He  is  still  viewed  as  a  Chris 
tian,  if  he  is  minded  to  accept  the  God  of  the  church  of  the 
Christians,  even  though  he  still  thinks  of  God  as  sometimes  a 
visible  and  "magnified  and  non-natural'*  man,  a  corporeal  pres 
ence  sitting  in  the  heavens,  while  the  scholastic  theologian  who 
has  converted  him  thinks  of  God  as  wholly  incorporeal,  as  not 
situated  in  loco  at  all,  as  not  even  existent  in  time,  but  only  in 
eternity,  and  as  spiritual  substance,  whose  nature,  whose  per 
fection,  whose  omniscience,  and  so  on,  are  the  topics  of  most 
elaborate  definition. 

Thus,  even  when  faith  in  a  creed  becomes  an  essential  part  of 
the  requirements  of  a  religion,  one  often  meets,  upon  a  much 
higher  level,  that  primacy  of  the  practical  over  the  theoretical 
side  of  religion  which  the  child's  prayers,  and  the  transplanted 
festivals,  and  the  conceivable  religion  of  the  pigeons  illustrate. 
The  faithful  convert  and  his  scholastic  teacher  agree  much  more 
in  religious  practices  than  in  conscious  religious  ideas. 

Meanwhile  this  very  situation  itself  is  regarded  by  all  con 
cerned  as  by  no  means  satisfactory.  And  those  followers  of  the 
higher  faiths  who  take  the  inner  life  more  seriously  are  never 
content  with  this  acceptance  of  what  seems  to  them  merely 
external  formalism.  For  them  faith,  whether  it  is  accompanied 
with  a  clear  understanding  or  not,  means  something  essentially 
interior  and  deep  and  soul-transforming.  Hence  they  continually 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY?  411 

insist  that  no  one  can  satisfy  God  who  does  not  rightly  view  God. 
And  thus  the  conflict  between  the  primacy  of  the  practical  and 
of  the  right  faith  constantly  tends  to  assume  new  forms  in  the 
life  of  all  the  higher  religions.  The  conflict  concerns  the  question 
whether  right  practice  or  right  belief  is  the  more  vital  element  in 
religion.  Well-known  formulas,  constantly  repeated  in  religious 
instruction,  profess  to  solve  the  problem  once  for  all.  But  it 
remains  a  problem  whose  solution,  if  any  solution  at  all  is 
reached,  has  to  be  worked  out  afresh  in  the  religious  experience 
of  each  individual. 

m 

Some  of  you,  to  whom  one  of  the  best-known  solutions  of  the 
problem  is  indeed  familiar  enough,  will  no  doubt  have  listened 
to  this  statement  of  the  conflict  between  the  primacy  of  religious 
practice  and  the  primacy  of  religious  belief  with  a  growing  impa 
tience.  What  right-minded  and  really  pious  person  does  not 
know,  you  will  say,  that  there  is  only  one  way  to  overcome  this 
opposition,  and  that  is  by  remembering  that  true  religion  is 
never  an  affair  either  of  mere  practice,  apart  from  inner  sincerity, 
or  of  theoretically  orthodox  opinions,  apart  from  other  inner 
experiences  and  interests?  Who  does  not  know,  you  will  say, 
that  true  religion  is  an  affair  of  the  whole  man,  not  of  deeds  alone, 
nor  of  the  intellect  alone,  but  of  the  entire  spiritual  attitude,  — 
of  emotion  and  of  trust,  —  of  devotion  and  of  motive,  —  of  con 
duct  guided  by  an  inner  light,  and  of  conviction  due  to  a  per 
sonal  contact  with  religious  truth?  Who  does  not  know  that 
about  this  all  the  best  Christian  teachers,  whether  Catholic  or 
Protestant,  are  agreed?  WTio  does  not  know  that  the  Roman 
Catholic  theologian  who  converts  the  savage  regards  his  own 
personal  salvation  as  due,  in  case  he  wins  it,  not  to  the  theoretical 
accuracy  of  his  theological  formulations,  but  to  the  direct  work 
ing  of  divine  grace,  which  alone  can  prepare  the  soul  for  that 
vision  of  God  which  can  never  be  attained  by  mere  reasonings, 
but  can  be  won  only  through  the  miraculous  gift  of  insight  pre 
pared  for  the  blessed  in  heaven?  Who  has  not  learned  that  in  the 
opinion  of  enh'ghtened  Christians  the  divine  grace  can  for  this 
very  reason  be  as  truly  present  in  the  humble  and  ignorant  soul 
of  the  savage  convert  as  in  that  of  his  learned  and  priestly  con- 


412  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

fessor?  Who,  then,  need  confound  true  faith  with  the  power  to 
formulate  the  mysteries  of  the  faith,  except  in  so  far,  indeed,  as 
one  trustingly  accepts  whatever  one  can  understand  of  the 
teachings  of  the  church?  It  is  indeed,  you  will  insist,  grace  that 
saves,  and  through  faith.  But  the  saving  faith,  you  will  continue, 
is,  at  least  in  the  present  life,  nothing  theoretical.  It  is  itself  a 
gift  of  God.  And  it  is  essentially  a  spiritual  attitude,  —  at  once 
practical  and  such  as  to  involve  whatever  grade  of  true  knowl 
edge  is  suited  to  the  present  stage  of  the  soul  in  question.  Herein, 
as  some  of  you  will  say,  the  most  enlightened  and  the  most  pious 
teachers  of  various  religions,  and  certainly  of  very  various  forms 
of  Christianity,  are  agreed.  What  is  vital  in  the  highest  religion 
is  neither  the  mere  practice  as  external,  nor  the  mere  opinion 
as  an  internal  formulation.  It  is  the  union  of  the  two.  It  is  the 
reaction  of  the  whole  spirit  in  the  presence  of  an  experience  of 
the  highest  realities  of  human  life  and  of  the  universe. 

If  any  of  you  at  this  point  assert  this  to  be  the  solution  of  the 
problem  as  to  what  is  vital  in  religion,  if  you  insist  that  such 
spiritual  gifts  as  the  Pauline  charity,  and  such  emotional  experi 
ences  as  those  of  conversion,  and  of  the  ascent  of  the  soul  to  God 
in  prayer,  and  such  moral  sincerity  as  is  the  soul  of  all  good 
works,  are  regarded  by  our  best  teachers  as  the  really  vital  ele 
ments  in  religion,  —  you  are  insisting  upon  a  solution  of  our 
problem  which  indeed  belongs  to  a  third,  and  no  doubt  to  a  very 
lofty  phase  of  the  religious  consciousness.  And  it  is  just  this 
third  phase  or  level  of  the  religious  consciousness  that  I  am  to 
try  to  study  in  these  conferences.  But  were  such  a  statement  in 
itself  enough  to  show  every  one  of  us  precisely  what  this  vital 
feature  of  the  higher  religions  is,  and  just  how  it  can  be  secured 
by  every  man,  and  just  how  our  modern  world,  with  all  its 
doubts  and  its  problems,  is  related  to  the  solution  just  proposed, 
I  should  indeed  have  no  task  in  these  lectures  but  to  repeat  the 
well-known  formula,  to  apply  it  briefly  to  the  case  of  Christian 
ity,  and  to  leave  the  rest  to  your  own  personal  experience. 

IV 

But  as  a  fact,  and  as  most  of  you  know  by  personal  experience, 
the  well-known  proposal  of  a  solution  thus  stated  is  to  most  of  us 
rather  the  formulation  of  a  new  problem  than  the  end  of  the 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY  ?  413 

whole  matter.  If  this  higher  unity  of  faith  and  practice,  of  grace 
and  right-mindedness,  of  the  right  conduct  and  the  clear  insight 
of  the  knowledge  of  what  is  real  and  the  feeling  for  the  deepest 
values  of  life,  —  if  all  this  is  indeed  the  goal  of  the  highest  reli 
gions,  and  if  it  constitutes  what  their  best  teachers  regard  as 
vital,  how  far  are  many  of  us  at  the  present  day  from  seeing  our 
way  towards  adapting  any  such  solution  to  our  own  cases !  For 
us,  the  modern  world  is  full  of  suggestions  of  doubt  regarding 
the  articles  of  the  traditional  creeds.  The  moral  problems  of  our 
time,  full  of  new  perplexities,  confuse  us  with  regard  to  what 
ought  to  be  done.  Our  spiritual  life  is  too  complex  to  be  any 
longer  easily  unified,  or  to  be  unified  merely  in  the  ways  useful 
for  earlier  generations.  Our  individualism  is  too  highly  conscious 
to  be  easily  won  over  to  a  mood  of  absorption  in  any  one  univer 
sal  ideal.  Our  sciences  are  too  complicated  to  make  it  easy  for 
us  to  conceive  the  world  either  as  a  unity  or  as  spiritual.  The 
church  is,  for  most  of  us,  no  longer  one  visible  institution  with  a 
single  authoritative  constitution,  but  a  variety  of  social  organi 
zations,  each  with  its  own  traditions  and  values.  The  spirit  of 
Christianity,  which  even  at  the  outset  Paul  found  so  hard  to 
formulate  and  to  reduce  to  unity,  can  no  longer  be  formulated 
by  us  precisely  in  his  terms.  Hence,  some  of  us  seek  for  some 
still  simpler,  because  more  primitive,  type  of  Christianity.  But 
when  we  look  behind  Paul  for  the  genuinely  primitive  Christian 
ity,  we  meet  with  further  problems,  one  or  two  of  which  we  are 
soon  to  formulate  more  precisely  in  this  discussion.  In  brief, 
however  vital  for  a  religion  may  be  its  power  to  unify  the  whole 
man,  outer  and  inner,  practical  and  intellectual,  ignorant  and 
wise,  emotional  and  critical,  the  situation  of  our  time  is  such 
that  this  unification  is  no  longer  so  presented  to  us  by  any  one 
body  of  religious  teaching,  that  we  can  simply  accept  it  from 
tradition  (since  in  the  modern  world  we  must  both  act  and  think 
as  individuals  for  ourselves),  nor  that  we  can  easily  learn  it  from 
our  own  experience,  since  in  these  days  our  experience  is  no 
longer  as  full  of  the  religiously  inspiring  elements  as  was  the 
experience  of  the  times  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  or  of  the  Reforma 
tion,  or  of  the  founders  of  the  great  mediaeval  religious  orders,  or 
of  the  early  Christian  church.  If  this  unity  of  the  spiritual  life 
is  to  be  reconquered,  we  must  indeed  take  account  of  the  old 


414  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

solutions,  but  we  must  give  to  them  new  forms,  and  adopt  new 
ways,  suited  to  the  ideas  and  to  the  whole  spirit  of  the  modern 
world.  Hence  the  proposed  solution  that  I  just  rehearsed  is  sim 
ply  the  statement  of  the  common  programme  of  all  the  highest 
religions  of  humanity.  But  how  to  interpret  this  programme  in 
terms  which  will  make  it  of  live  and  permanent  meaning  for  the 
modern  world,  —  this  is  precisely  the  religious  problem  of  to 
day. 

To  sum  up,  then,  our  answer  to  the  first  of  my  three  problems; 
namely,  What  form  of  faith  or  of  practice  can  be  called  vital  to 
any  religion?  I  reply:  In  the  case  of  any  one  of  the  more  primi 
tive  religions  it  is,  in  general,  the  religious  practices  that  are  the 
most  vital  features  of  that  religion;  and  these  practices,  in  gen 
eral,  are  vital  in  proportion  as  they  are  necessary  to  the  social 
life  of  the  tribe  or  nation  amongst  which  they  flourish,  so  that, 
when  these  vital  practices  die  out,  the  nation  in  question  either 
dwindles,  or  is  conquered,  or  passes  over  into  some  new  form  of 
social  order.  Secondly,  in  the  higher  religions,  because  of  the 
emphasis  that  they  lay  upon  the  inner  life,  and  especially  in  the 
world  religions,  such  as  Buddhism,  Mohammedanism,  and 
Christianity,  belief  tends  to  become  a  more  and  more  vital  fea 
ture  of  the  religions  in  question,  and  the  beliefs  —  such  as  mono 
theism,  or  the  acceptance  of  a  prophet,  or  of  a  longer  or  shorter 
formulated  creed  —  are  vital  to  such  a  religion  in  ways  and  to 
degrees  which  the  preachers  and  the  missionaries,  the  religious 
wars  and  the  sectarian  conflicts  of  these  faiths  illustrate,  —  vital 
in  proportion  as  the  men  concerned  are  ready  to  labor  or  to  die 
for  these  beliefs,  or  to  impose  them  upon  other  men,  or  to  insist 
that  no  one  shall  be  admitted  to  the  religious  community  who 
does  not  accept  them. 

But  thirdly,  as  soon  as  religious  beliefs  are  thus  emphasized 
as  over  against  religious  practices,  the  religious  practices  are  not, 
thereby,  in  general  set  aside  or  even  discouraged.  On  the  con 
trary,  they  generally  grow  more  numerous,  and  often  more  im 
posing.  And  consequently,  in  the  minds  of  the  more  ignorant,  or 
of  the  less  earnest,  of  the  faithful  there  appears  throughout  the 
life  of  these  higher  religions  a  constant  tendency  to  revert  to  the 
more  primitive  type  of  religion,  or  else  never,  in  fact,  to  rise 
above  that  type.  Hence,  even  in  the  religions  wherein  conform- 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY?  415 

ity  is  understood  to  imply  a  sincere  orthodoxy,  the  primacy  of 
ritual  or  of  other  practice  over  against  faith  and  the  inner  life 
constantly  tends  to  hold  its  own.  There  arises  in  such  religions 
the  well-known  conflict  of  inner  and  outer,  of  faith  and  merely 
external  works.  This  conflict  remains  a  constant  source  of  trans 
formations,  of  heresies,  and  of  reforms,  in  all  these  higher  reli 
gions,  and  is  in  fact  an  irrepressible  conflict  so  long  as  human 
nature  is  what  it  is.  For  a  great  mass  of  the  so-called  faithful, 
it  is  the  conformity  of  practice  that  thus  remains  vital.  But  the 
teachers  of  the  religion  assert  that  the  faith  is  vital. 

And  now,  fourthly,  the  higher  religions,  especially  as  repre 
sented  in  their  highest  type  of  teachings,  are  deeply  concerned 
in  overcoming  and  in  reducing  to  unity  this  conflict  of  formal 
observance  with  genuine  faith,  wherever  the  conflict  arises.  The 
proposed  solution  which  is  most  familiar,  most  promising,  if  it 
can  be  won,  and  most  difficult  to  be  won,  is  the  solution  which 
consists  in  asserting  and  in  showing,  if  possible,  in  life,  that  what 
is  most  vital  to  religion  is  not  practice  apart  from  faith,  nor  faith 
apart  from  practice,  but  a  complete  spiritual  reaction  of  the 
entire  man,  —  a  reaction  which,  if  possible,  shall  unite  a  right 
belief  in  the  unseen  world  of  the  faith  with  the  inner  perfection 
and  blessedness  that  ought  to  result  from  the  indwelling  of  the 
truth  in  the  soul,  and  with  that  power  to  do  good  works  and  to 
conform  to  the  external  religious  requirements  which  is  to  be 
expected  from  one  whose  soul  is  at  peace  and  lives  in  the  light. 
In  a  word,  what  this  solution  supposes  to  be  most  vital  to  the 
highest  religion  is  the  union  of  faith  and  works  through  a  com 
pleted  spirituality. 

Meanwhile,  as  we  have  also  seen,  just  our  age  is  especially 
beset  with  the  problem:  How  can  such  a  solution  be  any  longer 
an  object  of  reasonable  hope,  when  the  faiths  have  become  un 
certain,  the  practices  largely  antiquated,  our  life  and  our  duty  so 
problematic,  and  our  environment  so  uninspiring  to  our  religious 
interests?  So  much,  then,  for  the  first  of  our  three  problems. 

v 

It  is  now  our  task  to  consider  the  second  of  our  questions. 
How  does  this  problem  regarding  what  is  vital  to  a  religion 
appear  when  we  turn  to  the  special  case  of  Christianity? 


416  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

Our  review  of  the  sorts  of  elements  which  are  found  vital  upon 
the  various  levels  of  the  religious  consciousness  will  have  pre 
pared  you  to  look  at  once  for  what  is  most  vital  about  Chris 
tianity  upon  the  third  and  highest  of  the  three  levels  that  I  have 
enumerated.  It  is  true  that  in  the  minds  of  great  masses  of  the 
less  enlightened  and  less  devoted  population  of  the  Christian 
world  certain  religious  practices  have  always  been  regarded  as 
constituting  the  most  vital  features  of  their  religion.  These 
practices  are  especially  those  which  for  the  people  in  question 
imply  the  obedient  acceptance  of  the  sacraments  of  the  church. 
Of  course  for  such,  faith  is  indeed  a  condition  for  the  efficacy  of 
the  sacraments.  But  faith  expresses  itself  especially  through  and 
in  one's  relation  to  these  sacraments.  Such  emphasis  upon  reli 
gious  practices  is  inevitable,  so  long  as  human  nature  is  what  it  is. 
But  Christianity  is  obviously,  upon  all  of  its  higher  levels,  essen 
tially  a  religion  of  the  inner  life;  and  for  all  those  in  any  body  of 
Christians  who  are  either  more  devout  or  more  enlightened  the 
problem  of  the  church  has  always  included,  along  with  other 
things,  the  problem  of  finding  and  formulating  the  true  faith; 
and  such  faith  is,  to  such  people,  vital  to  their  religion.  In  con 
sequence  of  its  vast  successes  in  conquering,  after  a  fashion,  its 
own  regions  of  the  world,  Christianity  has  had  to  undertake  upon 
a  very  large  scale,  and  over  a  long  series  of  centuries,  the  task  of 
adapting  itself  to  the  needs  of  peoples  who  were  in  very  various, 
and  often  in  very  primitive,  conditions  of  culture.  Hence,  in 
formulating  its  faith  and  practice,  it  has  had  full  experience  of 
the  conflict  between  those  who  in  a  relatively  childlike  and  prim 
itive  way  regard  religious  practice  as  the  primal  evidence  and 
expression  of  the  possession  of  the  true  religion,  and  those  who, 
on  the  contrary,  insist  primarily  upon  right  belief  and  a  rightly 
guided  inner  life  as  a  necessary  condition  for  such  conduct  as 
can  be  pleasing  to  God.  Where,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  the  effort  to  reconcile  these  t^vo  motives  has 
the  longest  traditional  expression,  that  is,  where  the  most  elabo 
rate  official  definition  of  the  saving  faith  has  been  deliberately 
joined  with  the  most  precise  requirements  regarding  religious 
practice,  the  conflict  of  motives  here  in  question  has  been  only 
the  more  notable  as  a  factor  in  the  history  of  the  church,  —  how 
ever  completely  for  an  individual  believer  this  very  conflict  may 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY?  417 

appear  to  have  been  solved.  In  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the 
sacraments,  in  the  theory  of  the  conditions  upon  which  their 
validity  depends,  and  of  their  effects  upon  the  process  of  salva 
tion,  the  most  primitive  of  religious  tendencies  stand  side  by 
side  with  the  loftiest  spiritual  interests  in  glaring  contrast.  On 
the  one  hand  the  doctrine  of  the  sacraments  appeals  to  primitive 
tendencies,  because  certain  purely  magical  influences  and  incan 
tations  are  in  question.  The  repetition  of  certain  formulas  and 
deeds  acts  as  an  irresistible  miraculous  charm.  On  the  other 
hand  the  life  of  the  spirit  is  furthered  through  the  administration 
of  these  same  sacraments  by  some  of  the  deepest  and  most 
spiritual  of  influences,  and  by  some  of  the  most  elevated  forms 
of  inner  life  which  the  consciousness  of  man  has  ever  conceived. 
That  there  is  an  actual  conflict  of  motives  involved  in  this  union 
of  primitive  magic  with  spiritual  cultivation,  the  church  in  ques 
tion  has  repeatedly  found,  when  the  greater  schisms  relating  to 
the  validity  or  to  the  interpretation  of  her  sacraments  have 
rent  the  unity  of  her  body,  and  when,  sometimes  within  her  own 
fold,  the  mystics  have  quarrelled  with  the  formalists,  and  both 
with  the  modernists,  of  any  period  in  which  the  religious  life  of 
the  church  was  at  all  intense. 

Most  of  you  will  agree,  I  suppose,  as  to  the  sort  of  solution  of 
such  conflicts  between  the  higher  and  lower  aspects  of  Christian 
ity  which  is  to  be  sought,  in  case  there  is  to  be  any  hope  of  a 
solution.  You  will  probably  be  disposed  to  say:  What  is  vital  in 
Christianity,  if  Christianity  is  permanently  to  retain  its  vitality 
at  all  in  our  modern  world,  must  be  defined  primarily  neither  in 
terms  of  mere  religious  practice  nor  yet  in  terms  of  merely  intel 
lectual  formulation,  but  in  terms  of  that  unity  of  will  and  intel 
lect  that  may  be  expressed  in  the  spiritual  disposition  of  the 
whole  man.  You  will  say,  What  is  vital  in  Christianity  must  be, 
if  anything,  the  Christian  interpretation  of  human  life,  and  the 
life  lived  in  the  light  of  this  interpretation.  Such  a  life,  you  will 
insist,  can  never  be  identified  by  its  formal  religious  practices, 
however  important,  or  even  indispensable,  some  of  you  may 
believe  this  or  that  religious  practice  to  be.  Nor  can  one  reduce 
what  is  vital  in  Christianity  merely  to  a  formulated  set  of  opin 
ions,  since,  as  the  well-known  word  has  it,  the  devils  also  believe, 
and  tremble,  and,  as  some  of  you  may  be  disposed  benevolently 


418  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

to  add,  the  philosophers  also  believe,  and  lecture.  No,  you  will 
say,  the  Christian  life  includes  practices,  which  may  need  to  be 
visible  and  formal;  it  includes  beliefs,  which  may  have  to  be 
discussed  and  formulated;  but  Christianity  is,  first  of  all,  an  in 
terpretation  of  life,  —  an  interpretation  that  is  nothing  if  not 
practical,  and  also  nothing  if  not  guided  from  within  by  a  deep 
spiritual  interest  and  a  genuine  religious  experience. 

So  far  we  shall  find  it  easy  to  agree  regarding  the  principles  of 
our  inquiry.  Yet,  as  the  foregoing  review  of  the  historical  con 
flicts  of  religion  has  shown  us,  we  thus  merely  formulate  our 
problem.  We  stand  at  the  outset  of  what  we  want  to  do. 

What  is  that  interpretation  of  life  which  is  vital  to  Christian 
ity?  How  must  a  Christian  undertake  to  solve  his  problem  of  his 
own  personal  salvation?  How  shall  he  view  the  problem  of  the 
salvation  of  mankind?  What  is  that  spiritual  attitude  which  is 
essential  to  the  Christian  religion?  Thus  our  second  problem 
now  formulates  itself. 

VI 

Amongst  the  countless  efforts  to  answer  these  questions  there 
are  two  which  in  these  discussions  we  especially  need  to  face. 
The  two  answers  thus  proposed  differ  decidedly  from  each  other. 
Each  is  capable  of  leading  various  further  and  more  special 
formulations  of  opinion  about  the  contents  of  the  Christian 
religion. 

The  first  answer  may  be  stated  as  follows :  What  is  vital  about 
Christianity  is  simply  the  spiritual  attitude  and  the  doctrine  of 
Christ,  as  he  himself  taught  this  doctrine  and  this  attitude  in  the 
body  of  his  authentic  sayings  and  parables,  and  as  he  lived  all 
this  out  in  his  own  life.  All  in  Christianity  that  goes  beyond  this 
—  all  that  came  to  the  consciousness  of  the  church  after  Christ's 
own  teaching  had  been  uttered  and  finished  —  either  is  simply 
a  paraphrase,  an  explanation,  or  an  application  of  the  original 
doctrine  of  Christ,  or  else  is  not  vital,  —  is  more  or  less  unessen 
tial,  mythical,  or  at  the  very  least  external.  Grasp  the  spirit  of 
Christ's  own  teaching,  interpret  life  as  he  interpreted  it,  and  live 
out  this  interpretation  of  life  as  completely  as  you  can,  imitating 
him  —  and  then  you  are  in  essence  a  Christian.  Fail  to  compre 
hend  the  spirit  of  Christ,  or  to  live  out  his  interpretation  of  life, 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY  ?  419 

and  you  in  so  far  fail  to  possess  what  is  vital  about  Christianity. 
This,  I  say,  is  the  first  of  the  two  answers  that  we  must  consider. 
It  is  an  answer  well  known  to  most  of  you,  and  an  emphasis  upon 
this  answer  characterizes  some  of  the  most  important  religious 
movements  of  our  own  time. 

The  second  answer  is  as  follows:  What  is  vital  about  Chris 
tianity  depends  upon  regarding  the  mission  and  the  life  of  Christ 
as  an  organic  part  of  a  divine  plan  for  the  redemption  and  salva 
tion  of  man.  While  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  as  his  sayings  record 
this  doctrine,  is  indeed  an  essential  part  of  this  mission,  one  can 
not  rightly  understand,  above  all  one  cannot  apply,  the  teach 
ings  of  Christ,  one  cannot  live  out  the  Christian  interpretation 
of  life,  unless  one  first  learns  to  view  the  person  of  Christ  in  its 
true  relation  to  God,  and  the  work  of  Christ  as  an  entirely 
unique  revelation  and  expression  of  God's  will.  The  work  of 
Christ,  however,  culminated  in  his  death.  Hence,  as  the  historic 
church  has  always  maintained,  it  is  the  cross  of  Christ  that  is  the 
symbol  of  whatever  is  most  vital  about  Christianity.  As  for  the 
person  of  Christ  as  his  life  revealed  it,  —  what  is  vital  in  Chris 
tianity  depends  upon  conceiving  this  personality  in  essentially 
superhuman  terms.  The  prologue  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  deliber 
ately  undertakes  to  state  what  for  the  author  of  that  Gospel  is 
vital  in  Christianity.  This  prologue  does  so  by  means  of  the 
familiar  doctrine  of  the  eternal  Word  that  was  the  beginning, 
that  was  with  God  and  was  God,  and  that  in  Christ  was  made 
flesh  and  dwelt  amongst  men.  Abandon  this  doctrine,  and  you 
give  up  what  is  vital  in  Christianity.  Moreover,  the  work  of 
Christ  was  essential  to  the  whole  relation  of  his  own  teachings 
to  the  life  of  men.  Human  nature  being  what  it  is,  the  teaching 
that  Christ's  sayings  record  cannot  enter  into  the  genuine  life 
of  any  one  who  has  not  first  been  transformed  into  a  new  man  by 
means  of  an  essentially  superhuman  and  divine  power  of  grace. 
It  was  the  work  of  Christ  to  open  the  way  whereby  this  divine 
grace  became  and  still  becomes  efficacious.  The  needed  trans 
formation  of  human  nature,  the  change  of  life  which  according 
to  Christ's  sayings  is  necessary  as  a  condition  for  entering  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  this  is  made  possible  through  the  effects  of 
the  life  and  death  of  Christ.  This  life  and  death  were  events 
whereby  man's  redemption  was  made  possible,  whereby  the 


420  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

atonement  for  sin  was  accomplished.  In  brief,  what  is  vital  to 
Christianity  includes  an  acceptance  of  the  two  cardinal  doctrines 
of  the  incarnation  and  the  atonement.  For  only  in  case  these 
doctrines  are  accepted  is  it  possible  to  interpret  life  in  the  essen 
tially  Christian  way,  and  to  live  out  this  interpretation. 

Here  are  two  distinct  and,  on  the  whole,  opposed  answers  to 
the  question,  What  is  vital  in  Christianity?  I  hope  that  you  will 
see  that  each  of  these  answers  is  an  effort  to  rise  above  the  levels 
wherein  either  religious  practice  or  intellectual  belief  is  over 
emphasized.  It  is  useless  for  the  partisan  of  the  Christianity  of 
the  prologue  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  accuse  his  modern  oppo 
nent  of  a  willingness  to  degrade  Christ  to  the  level  of  a  mere 
teacher  of  morals,  and  Christianity  to  a  mere  practice  of  good 
works.  It  is  equally  useless  for  one  who  insists  upon  the  suffi 
ciency  of  the  gospel  of  Christ  simply  as  Christ's  recorded  sayings 
teach  it  to  accuse  his  opponent  of  an  intention  to  make  true 
religion  wholly  dependent  upon  the  acceptance  of  certain  meta 
physical  opinions  regarding  the  superhuman  nature  of  Christ. 
No,  the  opposition  between  these  two  views  regarding  what  is 
vital  in  Christianity  is  an  opposition  that  appears  on  the  highest 
levels  of  the  religious  consciousness.  It  is  not  that  one  view  says : 
"Christ  taught  these  and  these  moral  doctrines,  and  the  practice 
of  these  teachings  constitutes  all  that  is  vital  in  Christianity." 
It  is  not  that  the  opposing  view  says:  "Christ  was  the  eternal 
Word  made  flesh,  and  a  mere  belief  in  this  fact  and  in  the  doc 
trine  of  the  atoning  death  is  the  vital  feature  of  Christianity." 
No,  both  of  these  two  views  attempt  to  be  views  upon  the  third 
level  of  the  religious  consciousness,  —  views  about  the  whole 
interpretation  of  the  higher  life,  and  of  its  relation  to  God  and 
to  the  salvation  of  man.  So  far,  neither  view,  as  its  leading 
defenders  now  hold  it,  can  accuse  the  other  of  lapsing  into  those 
more  primitive  views  of  religion  which  I  have  summarized  in  the 
earlier  part  of  this  paper.  And  I  have  dwelt  so  long  upon  a  pre 
liminary  view  of  the  relations  between  faith  and  practice  in  the 
history  of  religion,  because  I  wanted  to  clear  the  way  for  a  study 
of  our  problem  on  its  genuinely  highest  level,  so  that  we  shall 
henceforth  be  clear  of  certain  old  and  uninspiring  devices  of  con 
troversy.  Both  parties  are  really  trying  to  express  what  is  vital 
in  the  Christian  conception  of  life.  Both  view  Christianity  as  a 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY  ?  421 

faith  which  gives  sense  to  life,  and  also  as  a  mode  of  life  which  is 
centred  about  a  faith.  The  true  dispute  arises  upon  the  highest 
levels.  The  question  is  simply  this:  Is  the  Gospel  which  Christ 
preached,  that  is,  the  teaching  recorded  in  the  authentic  sayings 
and  parables,  intelligible,  acceptable,  vital,  in  case  you  take  it 
by  itself?  Or,  does  Christianity  lose  its  vitality  in  case  you  can 
not  give  a  true  sense  to  those  doctrines  of  the  incarnation  and  to 
the  atonement  which  the  traditional  Christian  world  has  so  long 
held  and  so  deeply  loved?  And  furthermore,  can  you,  in  the 
light  of  modern  insight,  give  any  longer  a  reasonable  sense  to  the 
traditional  doctrines  of  the  atonement  and  the  incarnation?  In 
other  words :  Is  Christianity  essentially  a  religion  of  redemption 
in  the  sense  in  which  tradition  defined  redemption?  Or  is  Chris 
tianity  simply  that  religion  of  the  love  of  God  and  the  love  of 
man  which  the  sayings  and  the  parables  so  richly  illustrate? 

However  much,  upon  its  lower  levels,  Christianity  may  have 
used  and  included  the  motives  of  primitive  religion,  this  our 
present  question  is  not  reducible  to  the  terms  of  the  relatively 
lower  conflict  between  a  religion  of  creed  and  a  religion  of  prac 
tice.  The  issue  now  defined  concerns  the  highest  interests  of 
religious  life. 

In  favor  of  the  traditional  view  that  the  essence  of  Christianity 
consists,  first,  in  the  doctrine  of  the  superhuman  person  and  the 
redemptive  work  of  Christ,  and,  secondly,  in  the  interpretative 
life  that  rests  upon  this  doctrine,  stands  the  whole  authority, 
such  as  it  is,  of  the  needs  and  religious  experience  of  the  church 
of  Christian  history.  The  church  early  found,  or  at  least  felt, 
that  it  could  not  live  at  all  without  thus  interpreting  the  person 
and  work  of  Christ. 

Against  such  an  account  of  what  is  vital  in  Christianity  stands 
to-day  for  many  of  us  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  in  question  seems 
to  be,  at  least  in  the  main,  unknown  to  the  historic  Christ,  in  so 
far  as  we  can  learn  what  he  taught,  while  both  the  evidence  for 
the  traditional  doctrine  and  the  interpretation  of  it  have  rested 
during  Christian  history  upon  reports  which  our  whole  modern 
view  of  the  universe  disposes  many  of  us  to  regard  as  legendary, 
and  upon  a  theology  which  many  of  us  can  no  longer  accept  as 
literally  true.  Whether  such  objections  are  finally  valid,  we  must 
later  consider.  I  mention  the  objections  here  because  they  are 


422  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

familiar,  and  because  in  our  day  they  lead  many  to  turn  from 
the  tangles  of  tradition  with  a  thankful  joy  and  relief  to  the 
hopeful  task  of  trying  to  study,  to  apply,  and  to  live  the  pure 
Gospel  of  Christ  as  he  taught  it  in  that  body  of  sayings  which, 
as  many  insist,  need  no  legends  to  make  them  intelligible,  and 
no  metaphysics  to  make  them  sacred. 

Yet,  as  a  student  of  philosophy,  coming  in  no  partisan  spirit, 
I  must  insist  that  this  reduction  of  what  is  vital  in  Christianity 
to  the  so-called  pure  Gospel  of  Christ,  as  he  preached  it  and  as 
it  is  recorded  in  the  body  of  the  presumably  authentic  sayings 
and  parables,  is  profoundly  unsatisfactory.  The  main  argument 
for  doubting  that  this  so-called  pure  Gospel  of  Christ  contains 
the  whole  of  what  is  vital  in  Christianity  rests  upon  the  same 
considerations  that  led  the  historical  church  to  try  in  its  own 
way  to  interpret,  and  hence  to  supplement,  this  gospel  by  reports 
that  may  have  been  indeed  full  of  the  legendary,  by  metaphysi 
cal  ideas  that  may  indeed  have  been  deeply  imperfect,  but  by  a 
deep  instinctive  sense  of  genuine  religious  values  which,  after 
all,  was  indispensable  for  later  humanity,  —  a  sense  of  religious 
values  which  was  a  true  sense.  For  one  thing,  Christ  can  hardly 
be  supposed  to  have  regarded  his  most  authentically  reported 
religious  sayings  as  containing  the  whole  of  his  message,  or  as 
embodying  the  whole  of  his  mission.  For,  if  he  had  so  viewed 
the  matter,  the  Messianic  tragedy  in  which  his  life  work  culmi 
nated  would  have  been  needless  and  unintelligible.  For  the  rest, 
the  doctrine  that  he  taught  is,  as  it  stands,  essentially  incomplete. 
It  is  not  a  rounded  whole.  It  looks  beyond  itself  for  a  comple 
tion,  which  the  master  himself  unquestionably  conceived  in 
terms  of  the  approaching  end  of  the  world,  and  which  the  church 
later  conceived  in  terms  of  what  has  become  indeed  vital  for 
Christianity. 

As  modern  men,  then,  we  stand  between  opposed  views.  Each 
view  has  to  meet  hostile  arguments.  Each  can  make  a  case  in 
favor  of  its  value  as  a  statement  of  the  essence  of  Christianity. 
On  the  one  hand  the  Christ  of  the  historically  authentic  sayings, 
—  whose  gospel  is,  after  all,  not  to  be  understood  except  as  part 
of  a  much  vaster  religious  process;  on  the  other  hand  the  Christ 
of  legend,  whom  it  is  impossible  for  us  modern  men  longer  to 
conceive  as  the  former  ages  of  the  church  often  conceived  him. 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY?  423 

Can  we  choose  between  the  two?  Which  stands  for  what  is  vital 
in  Christianity?  And,  if  we  succeed  in  defining  this  vital  element, 
whatcan  it  mean  to  us  to-day,  and  in  the  light  of  our  modern 
world? 

Thus  we  have  defined  our  problems.  Our  next  task  is  to  face 
them  as  openly,  as  truthfully,  and  as  carefully  as  our  opportunity 
permits. 

vn 

Let  us,  then,  briefly  consider  the  first  of  the  two  views  which 
have  been  set  over  against  one  another. 

The  teachings  of  Christ  which  are  preserved  to  us  do  indeed 
form  a  body  of  doctrine  that  one  can  survey  and  study  without 
forming  any  final  opinion  about  the  historical  character  of  the 
narratives  with  which  these  teachings  are  accompanied  in  the 
three  Synoptic  Gospels.  The  early  church  preserved  the  sayings, 
recorded  them,  no  doubt,  in  various  forms,  but  learned  to  regard 
one  or  two  of  the  bodies  of  recorded  sayings  as  especially  impor 
tant  and  authentic.  The  documents  in  which  these  earliest  rec 
ords  were  contained  are  lost  to  us;  but  our  gospels,  especially 
those  of  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke,  preserve  the  earlier  tradi 
tion  in  a  way  that  can  be  tested  by  the  agreements  in  the  reported 
sayings  as  they  appear  in  the  different  gospels.  It  is  of  course 
true  that  some  of  the  authentic  teachings  of  Christ  concern  mat 
ters  in  regard  to  which  other  teachers  of  his  own  people  had 
already  reached  insights  that  tended  towards  his  own.  But  no 
body  can  doubt  that  the  sayings,  taken  as  a  whole,  embody  a 
new  and  profoundly  individual  teaching,  and  are  what  they  pre 
tend  to  be;  namely,  at  least  a  partial  presentation  of  an  interpre 
tation  of  life,  —  an  interpretation  that  was  deliberately  intended 
by  the  teacher  to  revolutionize  the  hearts  and  lives  of  those  to 
whom  the  sayings  were  addressed.  Since  a  recorded  doctrine, 
simply  taken  in  itself,  and  apart  from  any  narrative,  is  an  un 
questionable  fact,  and  since  a  new  and  individual  doctrine  is  a 
fact  that  can  be  explained  only  as  the  work  of  a  person,  it  is 
plain  that,  whatever  you  think  of  the  narrative  portions  of  the 
gospels,  your  estimate  of  Christ's  reported  teachings  may  be 
freed  at  once  from  any  of  the  perplexities  that  perhaps  beset 
you  as  to  how  much  you  can  find  out  about  his  life.  So  much  at 


424  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

least  he  was;  namely,  the  teacher  of  this  doctrine.  As  to  his  life, 
it  is  indeed  important  to  know  that  he  taught  the  doctrine  as  one 
who  fully  meant  it;  that  while  he  taught  it  he  so  lived  it  out  as 
to  win  the  entire  confidence  of  those  who  were  nearest  to  him; 
that  he  was  ready  to  die  for  it,  and  for  whatever  else  he  believed 
to  be  the  cause  that  he  served;  and  that  when  the  time  came  he 
did  die  for  his  cause.  So  much  of  the  gospel  narrative  is  with  all 
reasonable  certainty  to  be  regarded  as  historical. 

So  far,  then,  one  has  to  regard  the  teaching  of  Christ  as  a 
perfectly  definite  object  for  historical  study  and  personal  imita 
tion,  and  as,  in  its  main  outlines,  an  accessible  tradition.  It  is 
impossible  to  be  sure  of  our  tradition  as  regards  each  individual 
saying.  But  the  main  body  of  the  doctrine  stands  before  us  as  a 
connected  whole,  and  it  is  in  its  wholeness  that  we  are  interested 
in  comprehending  its  meaning. 

Now  there  is  also  no  doubt,  I  have  said,  that  this  doctrine  is 
intended  as  at  least  a  part  of  an  interpretation  of  life.  For  the 
explicit  purpose  of  the  teacher  is  to  transform  the  inner  life  of 
his  hearers,  and  thus  to  bring  about,  through  this  transformation, 
a  reform  of  their  individual  outer  life.  It  is,  furthermore,  sure 
that,  while  the  teaching  in  question  includes  a  moral  ideal,  it  is 
no  merely  moral  teaching,  but  is  full  of  a  profoundly  religious 
interest.  For  the  transformation  of  the  inner  life  which  is  in 
question  lias  to  do  with  the  whole  relation  of  the  individual  man 
to  God.  And  there  are  especially  two  main  theses  of  the  teacher 
which  do  indeed  explicitly  relate  to  the  realm  of  the  superhuman 
and  divine  world,  and  which  therefore  do  concern  what  we  may 
call  religious  metaphysics.  That  is,  these  theses  are  assertions 
about  a  reality  that  does  not  belong  to  the  physical  realm,  and 
that  is  not  confined  to  the  realities  which  we  contemplate  when 
we  consider  merely  ethical  truth  as  such.  The  first  of  these 
religious  theses  relates  to  the  nature  of  God.  It  is  usually  sum 
marized  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  In  its  fuller 
statement  it  involves  that  account  of  the  divine  love  for  the 
individual  man  which  is  so  characteristic  and  repeated  a  feature 
of  the  authentic  sayings.  The  other  thesis  is  what  we  now  call 
judgment  of  value.  It  is  the  assertion  of  the  infinite  worth  of 
each  individual  person,  —  an  assertion  richly  illustrated  in  the 
parables,  and  used  as  the  basis  of  the  ethical  teaching  of  Christ, 


WHAT   IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY?  425 

since  the  value  that  God  sets  upon  your  brother  is  the  deepest 
reason  assigned  to  show  why  your  own  life  should  be  one  of  love 
towards  your  brother. 

VIII 

So  much  for  the  barest  suggestion  of  a  teaching  which  you  all 
know,  and  which  I  have  not  here  further  to  expound.  Our  pres 
ent  question  is  simply  this:  Is  this  the  whole  of  what  is  vital  to 
Christianity?  Or  is  there  something  vital  which  is  not  contained 
in  these  recorded  sayings,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  the  matters 
just  summarily  mentioned? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  suggested  by  certain  very  well- 
known  facts.  First,  these  sayings  are,  in  the  master's  mind,  only 
part  of  a  programme  which,  as  the  event  showed,  related  not 
only  to  the  individual  soul  and  its  salvation,  but  to  the  reform  of 
the  whole  existing  and  visible  social  order.  Or,  expressed  in  our 
modern  terms,  the  teacher  contemplated  a  social  revolution,  as 
well  as  the  before-mentioned  universal  religious  reformation 
of  each  individual  life.  He  was  led,  at  least  towards  the  end  of 
his  career,  to  interpret  his  mission  as  that  of  the  Messiah  of  his 
people.  That  the  coming  social  revolution  was  conceived  by 
him  in  divine  and  miraculous  terms,  that  it  was  to  be  com 
pleted  by  the  final  judgment  of  all  men,  that  the  coming  king 
dom  was  to  be  not  of  this  world,  in  the  sense  in  which  the 
Roman  Empire  was  of  this  world,  but  was  to  rest  upon  the 
directly  visible  triumph  of  God's  will  through  the  miraculous 
appearance  of  the  chosen  messenger  who  should  execute  this 
will,  —  all  this  regarding  the  conception  which  was  in  Christ's 
mind  seems  clear.  But,  however  the  coming  revolution  was  con 
ceived,  it  was  to  be  a  violent  and  supernatural  revolution  of  the 
external  social  order,  and  it  was  to  appear  openly  to  all  men 
upon  earth.  The  meek,  the  poor,  were  to  inherit  the  earth;  the 
mighty  were  to  be  cast  down;  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  were 
to  pass  away;  and  the  divine  sovereignty  was  to  take  its  visible 
place  as  the  controller  of  all  things. 

Now  it  is  no  part  of  my  present  task  to  endeavor  to  state  any 
theory  as  to  why  the  master  viewed  his  kingdom  of  heaven,  in 
part  at  least,  in  this  way.  You  may  interpret  the  doctrine  as  the 
church  has  for  ages  done,  as  a  doctrine  relating  to  the  far-off 


426  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

future  end  of  all  human  affairs  and  to  the  supernatural  mission  of 
Christ  as  both  Savior  and  Judge  of  the  world;  or  you  may  view 
the  revolutionary  purposes  of  the  master  as  I  myself  actually 
do,  simply  as  his  personal  interpretation  of  the  Messianic  tradi 
tions  of  his  people  and  of  the  social  needs  of  his  time  and  of  the 
then  common  but  mistaken  expectation  of  the  near  end  of  the 
world.  In  any  case,  if  this  doctrine,  however  brought  about  or 
interpreted,  was  for  the  master  a  vital  part  of  his  teaching,  then 
you  have  to  view  the  resulting  interpretation  of  life  accordingly. 
I  need  not  say,  however,  that  whoever  to-day  can  still  find  a 
place  for  the  Messianic  hopes  and  for  the  doctrine  of  the  last 
judgment  in  his  own  interpretation  of  Christianity  has  once  for 
all  made  up  his  mind  to  regard  a  doctrine,  —  and  a  deeply 
problematic  doctrine,  —  a  profoundly  metaphysical  doctrine 
about  the  person  and  work  of  Christ,  and  about  the  divine  plan 
for  the  salvation  of  man,  —  as  a  vital  part  of  his  own  Chris 
tianity. 

And  now,  in  this  same  connection,  we  can  point  out  that,  if 
the  whole  doctrine  of  Christ  had  indeed  consisted  for  him  in  re 
garding  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  as  identical  with 
the  inner  transformation  of  each  man  by  the  spirit  of  divine  love, 
then  that  direct  and  open  opposition  to  the  existing  social 
authorities  of  his  people  which  led  to  the  Messianic  tragedy 
would  have  been  for  the  master  simply  needless.  Christ  chose 
this  plan  of  open  and  social  opposition  for  reasons  of  his  own. 
We  may  interpret  these  reasons  as  the  historical  church  has 
done,  or  we  may  view  the  matter  otherwise,  as  I  myself  do.  In 
any  case,  Christ's  view  of  what  was  vital  in  Christianity  cer 
tainly  included,  but  also  just  as  certainly  went  beyond,  the 
mere  preaching  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  that  is  within  you. 

But  one  may  still  say,  as  many  say  who  want  to  return  to  a 
purely  primitive  Christianity:  Can  we  not  choose  to  regard  the 
religious  doctrine  of  the  parables  and  of  the  sayings,  apart  from 
the  Messianic  hopes  and  the  anticipated  social  revolution,  as 
for  us  vital  and  sufficient?  Can  we  not  decline  to  attempt  to 
solve  the  Messianic  mystery?  Is  it  not  for  us  enough  to  know 
simply  that  the  master  did  indeed  die  for  his  faith,  leaving  his 
doctrine  concerning  the  spiritual  kingdom,  concerning  God  the 
Father,  and  concerning  man  the  beloved  brother,  as  his  final 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY?  427 

legacy  to  future  generations?  This  legacy  was  of  permanent 
value.  Is  it  not  enough  for  us? 

I  reply:  To  think  thus  is  obviously  to  view  Christ's  doctrine 
as  he  himself  did  not  view  it.  He  certainly  meant  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  to  include  the  inner  transformation  of  each  soul  by  the 
divine  love.  But  he  also  certainly  conceived  even  this  spiritual 
transformation  in  terms  of  some  sort  of  Messianic  mission, 
which  was  related  to  a  miraculous  coming  transformation  of 
human  society.  In  the  service  of  this  Messianic  social  cause  he 
died.  And  now  even  in  Christ's  interpretation  of  the  inner  and 
spiritual  life  of  the  individual  man  there  are  aspects  which  you 
cannot  understand  unless  you  view  them  in  the  light  of  the 
Messianic  expectation.  I  refer  to  the  master's  doctrine  upon 
that  side  of  it  which  emphasizes  the  passive  nonresistance  of  the 
individual  man,  in  waiting  for  God's  judgment.  This  side  of 
Christ's  doctrine  has  been  frequently  interpreted  as  requiring 
an  extreme  form  of  self-abnegation.  It  is  this  aspect  of  the  doc 
trine  which  glorifies  poverty  as  in  itself  an  important  aid  to 
piety.  In  this  sense,  too,  the  master  sometimes  counsels  a  certain 
indifference  to  ordinary  human  social  relations.  In  this  same 
spirit  his  sayings  so  frequently  illustrate  the  spirit  of  love  by 
the  mention  of  acts  that  involve  the  merely  immediate  relief  of 
suffering,  rather  than  by  dwelling  upon  those  more  difficult  and 
often  more  laborious  forms  of  love,  which  his  own  life  indeed 
exemplified,  and  which  take  the  form  of  the  lifelong  service  of  a 
superpersonal  social  cause. 

I  would  not  for  a  moment  wish  to  overemphasize  the  mean 
ing  of  these  negative  and  ascetic  aspects  of  the  sayings.  Christ's 
ethical  doctrine  was  unquestionably  as  much  a  positive  individu 
alism  as  it  was  a  doctrine  of  love.  It  was  also  as  genuinely  a  stern 
doctrine  as  it  was  a  humane  one.  Nobody  understands  it  who 
reduces  it  to  mere  self-abnegation,  or  to  nonresistance,  or  to  any 
form  of  merely  sentimental  amiability.  Nevertheless,  as  it  was 
taught,  it  included  sayings  and  illustrations  which  have  often 
been  interpreted  in  the  sense  of  pure  asceticism,  in  the  sense  of 
simple  nonresistance,  in  the  sense  of  an  unworldliness  that  seems 
opposed  to  the  establishment  and  the  prizing  of  definite  humani 
ties,  —  yes,  even  in  the  sense  of  an  anarchical  contempt  for  the 
forms  of  any  present  worldly  social  order.  In  brief,  the  doctrine 


428  JOSIAH   ROYCE 

contains  a  deep  and  paradoxical  opposition  between  its  central 
assertion  of  the  infinite  value  of  love  and  of  every  individual 
human  soul,  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  of  its  special  teachings, 
on  the  other  hand,  which  seem  to  express  a  negative  attitude 
towards  all  our  natural  efforts  to  assert  and  to  sustain  the  values 
of  life  by  means  of  definite  social  cooperation,  such  as  we  men 
can  by  ourselves  devise.  Now  the  solution  of  this  paradox  seems 
plain  when  we  remember  the  abnormal  social  conditions  of  those 
whom  Christ  was  teaching,  and  interpret  his  message  in  the  light 
of  his  Messianic  social  mission  with  its  coming  miraculous  change 
of  all  human  relations.  But  in  that  case  an  important  part  of 
the  sayings  must  be  viewed  as  possessing  a  meaning  which  is 
simply  relative  to  the  place,  to  the  people,  to  the  time,  and  to 
those  Messianic  hopes  of  an  early  end  of  the  existing  social  order, 
—  hopes  which  we  know  to  have  been  mistakenly  cherished  by 
the  early  church. 

I  conclude,  then,  so  far,  that  a  simple  return  to  a  purely  primi 
tive  Christianity  as  a  body  of  doctrine  complete  in  itself,  directly 
and  fully  expressed  in  the  sayings  of  Christ,  and  applicable, 
without  notable  supplement,  to  all  times,  and  to  our  own  day,  — 
is  an  incomplete  and  therefore  inadequate  religious  ideal.  The 
spiritual  kingdom  of  heaven,  the  transformation  of  the  inner  life 
which  the  sayings  teach,  is  indeed  a  genuine  part,  —  yes,  a  vital 
part,  —  of  Christianity.  But  it  is  by  no  means  the  whole  of  what 
is  vital  to  Christianity. 

IX 

I  turn  to  the  second  of  the  answers  to  our  main  question. 
According  to  this  answer,  Christianity  is  a  redemptive  religion. 
What  is  most  vital  to  Christianity  is  contained  in  whatever  is 
essential  and  permanent  about  the  doctrines  of  the  incarnation 
and  the  atonement.  Now  this  is  the  answer  which,  as  you  will 
by  this  time  see,  I  myself  regard  as  capable  of  an  interpreta 
tion  that  will  turn  it  into  a  correct  answer  to  our  question.  In 
answering  thus,  I  do  not  for  a  moment  call  in  question  the  just- 
mentioned  fact  that  the  original  teaching  of  the  master  regarding 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  indeed  a  vital  part  of  the  whole  of 
Christianity.  But  I  do  assert  that  this  so-called  purely  primitive 
Christianity  is  not  so  vital,  is  not  so  central,  is  not  so  essential  to 


WHAT  IS   VITAL  IN   CHRISTIANITY  ?  429 

mature  Christianity  as  are  the  doctrines  of  the  incarnation  and 
the  atonement  when  these  are  rightly  interpreted.  In  the  light  of 
these  doctrines  alone  can  the  work  of  the  master  be  seen  in  its 
most  genuine  significance. 

Yet,  as  has  been  already  pointed  out,  the  literal  acceptance  of 
this  answer  to  our  question,  as  many  still  interpret  the  answer, 
seems  to  be  beset  by  serious  difficulties.  These  difficulties  are 
now  easily  summarized.  The  historical  Christ  of  the  sayings 
and  the  parables,  little  as  we  certainly  know  regarding  his  life, 
is  still  a  definite  and,  in  the  main,  an  accessible  object  of  study 
and  of  interpretation,  just  because,  whatever  else  he  was,  he  was 
the  teacher  of  this  recorded  interpretation  of  life,  —  whether 
or  not  you  regard  that  recorded  interpretation  as  a  fully  com 
plete  and  rounded  whole.  But  the  Christ  whom  the  traditional 
doctrines  of  the  atonement  and  of  the  incarnation  present  to  us 
appears  in  the  minds  of  most  of  us  as  the  Christ  of  the  legends 
of  the  early  church,  —  a  being  whose  nature  and  whose  reported 
supernatural  mission  seem  to  be  involved  in  doubtful  mysteries 
—  mysteries  both  theological  and  historical.  Now  I  am  not  here 
to  tell  you  in  detail  why  the  modern  mind  has  come  to  be  un 
willing  to  accept,  as  literal  reports  of  historical  facts,  certain 
well-known  legends.  I  am  not  here  to  discuss  that  unwillingness 
upon  its  merits.  It  is  enough  for  my  present  purpose  to  say  first 
that  the  unwillingness  exists,  and,  secondly,  that,  as  a  fact,  I  my 
self  believe  it  to  be  a  perfectly  reasonable  unwillingness.  But 
I  say  this  not  at  all  because  I  suppose  that  modern  insight  has 
driven  out  of  the  reasonable  world  the  reality  of  spiritual  truth. 
The  world  of  history  is  indeed  a  world  full  of  the  doubtful.  And 
the  whole  world  of  phenomena  in  which  you  and  I  daily  move 
about  is  a  realm  of  mysteries.  Nature  and  man,  as  we  daily 
know  them,  and  also  daily  misunderstand  them,  are  not  what 
they  seem  to  us  to  be.  The  world  of  our  usual  human  experience 
is  but  a  beggarly  fragment  of  the  truth,  and,  if  we  take  too  seri 
ously  the  bits  of  wisdom  that  it  enables  us  to  collect  by  the 
observation  of  special  facts  and  of  natural  laws,  it  becomes  a 
sort  of  curtain  to  hide  from  us  the  genuine  realm  of  spiritual 
realities  in  the  midst  of  which  we  all  the  while  live.  Moreover, 
it  is  one  office  of  all  higher  religion  to  supplement  these  our  frag 
ments  of  experience  and  ordinary  notions  of  the  natural  order 


430  JOSIAH   ROYCE 

by  a  truer,  if  still  imperfect,  interpretation  of  the  spiritual  reali 
ties  that  are  beyond  our  present  vision.  That  is,  it  is  the  business 
of  religion  to  lift,  however  little,  the  curtain,  to  inspire  us,  not 
by  mere  dreams  of  ideal  life,  but  by  enlightening  glimpses  of  the 
genuine  truth  which,  if  we  were  perfect,  we  should  indeed  see, 
not,  as  now,  through  a  glass  darkly,  but  face  to  face. 

All  this  I  hold  to  be  true.  And  yet  I  fully  share  the  modern 
unwillingness  to  accept  legends  as  literally  true.  For  it  is  not  by 
first  repeating  the  tale  of  mere  marvels,  of  miracles,  —  by  dwell 
ing  upon  legends,  and  then  by  taking  the  accounts  in  question 
as  literally  true  historical  reports,  —  it  is  not  thus  that  we  at 
present,  in  our  modern  life,  can  best  help  ourselves  to  find  our 
way  to  the  higher  world.  These  miraculous  reports  are  best 
understood  when  we  indeed  first  dwell  upon  them  lovingly  and 
meditatively,  but  thereupon  learn  to  view  them  as  symbols,  as 
the  products  of  the  deep  and  endlessly  instructive  religious 
imagination,  —  and  thereby  learn  to  interpret  the  actually 
definite,  and  to  my  mind  unquestionably  superhuman  and  eter 
nal,  truth  that  these  legends  express,  but  express  by  figures,  — 
in  the  form  of  a  parable,  an  image,  a  narrative,  a  tale  of  some 
special  happening.  The  tale  is  not  literally  true.  But  its  deeper 
meaning  may  be  absolutely  true.  In  brief,  I  accept  the  opinion 
that  it  is  the  office  of  religion  to  interpret  truths  which  are  in 
themselves  perfectly  definite,  eternal,  and  literal,  but  to  inter 
pret  them  to  us  by  means  of  a  symbolism  which  is  the  product  of 
the  constructive  imagination  of  the  great  ages  in  which  the  reli 
gions  which  first  voiced  these  truths  grew  up.  There  are  some 
truths  which  our  complicated  natures  best  reach  first  through 
instinct  and  intuition,  through  parable  and  legend.  Only  when 
we  have  first  reached  them  in  this  way,  can  most  of  us  learn  to 
introduce  the  practical  and  indeed  saving  application  of  these 
truths  into  our  lives  by  living  out  the  spirit  of  these  parables. 
But  then  at  last  we  may  also  hope,  in  the  fulness  of  our  own 
time,  to  comprehend  these  truths  by  a  clearer  insight  into  the 
nature  of  that  eternal  world  which  is  indeed  about  and  above  us 
all,  and  which  is  the  true  source  of  our  common  life  and  light. 

I  am  of  course  saying  all  this  not  as  one  having  authority.  I 
am  simply  indicating  how  students  of  philosophy  who  are  of  the 
type  that  I  follow  are  accustomed  to  view  these  things.  In  this 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN  CHRISTIANITY?  431 

spirit  I  will  now  ask  you  to  look  for  a  moment  at  the  doctrines 
of  the  incarnation  and  of  the  atonement  in  some  of  their  deeper 
aspects.  It  is  a  gain  thus  to  view  the  doctrines,  whether  or  no 
you  accept  literally  the  well-known  miraculous  tale. 

There  has  always  existed  in  the  Christian  church  a  tradition 
tending  to  emphasize  the  conception  that  the  supernatural  work 
of  Christ,  which  the  church  conceived  in  the  form  of  the  doc 
trines  of  the  incarnation  and  the  atonement,  was  not  a  work 
accomplished  once  for  all  at  a  certain  historical  point  of  time, 
but  remains  somehow  an  abiding  work;  or,  perhaps,  that  it  ought 
to  be  viewed  as  a  timeless  fact,  which  never  merely  happened, 
but  which  is  such  as  to  determine  anew  in  every  age  the  relation 
of  the  faithful  to  God.  Of  course,  the  church  has  often  con 
demned  as  heretical  one  or  another  form  of  these  opinions.  Nev 
ertheless,  such  opinions  have  in  fact  entered  into  the  formation  of 
the  official  dogmas.  An  instance  is  the  influence  that  such  an  in 
terpretation  had  upon  the  historic  doctrine  of  the  Mass  and  of  the 
real  presence,  —  a  doctrine  which,  as  I  have  suggested,  combines 
in  one  some  of  the  most  primitive  of  religious  motives  with  some 
of  the  deepest  religious  ideas  that  men  have  ever  possessed.  In 
other  less  official  forms,  in  forms  which  frequently  approached, 
or  crossed,  the  boundaries  of  technical  heresy,  some  of  the  medi- 
seval  mystics,  fully  believing  in  their  own  view  of  their  faith,  and 
innocent  of  any  modern  doubts  about  miracles,  were  accustomed 
in  their  tracts  and  sermons  always  and  directly  to  interpret  every 
part  of  the  gospel  narrative,  including  the  miracles,  as  the  ex 
pression  of  a  vast  and  timeless  whole  of  spiritual  facts,  whereof 
the  narratives  are  merely  symbols.  In  the  sermons  of  Meister 
Eckhart,  the  great  early  German  mystic,  this  way  of  preaching 
Christian  doctrine  is  a  regular  part  of  his  appeal  to  the  people. 
I  am  myself  in  my  philosophy  no  mystic,  but  I  often  wish  that 
in  our  own  days  there  were  more  who  preached  what  is  indeed 
vital  in  Christianity  in  somewhat  the  fashion  of  Eckhart.  Let 
me  venture  upon  one  or  two  examples. 

Eckhart  begins  as  follows  a  sermon  on  the  text,  "Who  is  he 
that  is  born  king  of  the  Jews"  (Matthew  n,  £) :  "Mark  you,"  he 
says,  "mark  you  concerning  this  birth,  where  it  takes  place.  I 
say,  as  I  have  often  said:  This  eternal  birth  takes  place  in  the 
soul,  and  takes  place  there  precisely  as  it  takes  place  in  the 


,432  JOSIAH   ROYCE 

eternal  world,  —  no  more,  no  less.  This  birth  happens  in  the 
essence,  in  the  very  foundation,  of  the  soul."  "All  other  crea 
tures,"  he  continues,  "are  God's  footstool.  But  the  soul  is  his 
image.  This  image  must  be  adorned  and  fulfilled  through  this 
birth  of  God  in  the  soul."  The  birth,  the  incarnation,  of  God 
occurs  then,  so  Eckhart  continues,  in  every  soul,  and  eternally. 
But,  as  he  hereupon  asks :  Is  not  this  then  also  true  of  sinners, 
if  this  incarnation  of  God  is  thus  everlasting  and  universal? 
Wherein  lies  then  the  difference  between  saint  and  sinner?  What 
special  advantage  has  the  Christian  from  this  doctrine  of  the 
incarnation?  Eckhart  instantly  answers:  Sin  is  simply  due  to 
the  blindness  of  the  soul  to  the  eternal  presence  of  the  incarnate 
God.  And  that  is  what  is  meant  by  the  passage:  "The  light  shin- 
eth  in  the  darkness,  and  the  darkness  comprehendeth  it  not." 

Or  again,  Eckhart  expounds  in  a  sermon  the  statement  that 
Christ  came  "in  the  fulness  of  time";  that  is,  as  people  usually 
and  literally  interpret  the  matter,  Christ  came  when  the  human 
race  was  historically  prepared  for  his  coming.  But  Eckhart  is 
careless  concerning  this  historical  and  literal  interpretation  of 
the  passage  in  question,  although  he  doubtless  also  believes  it. 
For  him  the  true  meaning  of  the  passage  is  wholly  spiritual. 
WTien,  he  asks  in  substance,  is  the  day  fulfilled?  At  the  end  of 
the  day.  When  is  a  task  fulfilled?  When  the  task  is  over.  When, 
therefore,  is  the  fulness  of  time  reached?  Whenever  a  man  is  in 
his  soul  ready  to  be  done  with  time;  that  is,  when  in  contempla 
tion  he  dwells  only  upon  and  in  the  eternal.  Then  alone,  when 
the  soul  forgets  time,  and  dwells  upon  God  who  is  above  time, 
then,  and  then  only,  does  Christ  really  come.  For  Christ's  com 
ing  means  simply  our  becoming  aware  of  what  Eckhart  calls  the 
eternal  birth ;  that  is,  the  eternal  relation  of  the  real  soul  to  the 
real  God. 

It  is  hard,  in  our  times,  to  get  any  sort  of  hearing  for  such 
really  deeper  interpretations  of  what  is  indeed  vital  in  Chris 
tianity.  A  charming,  but  essentially  trivial,  religious  psychology 
to-day  invites  some  of  us  to  view  religious  experience  simply  as  a 
chance  play-at-hide-and-seek  with  certain  so-called  subliminal 
mental  forces  and  processes,  whose  crudely  capricious  crises  and 
catastrophes  shall  have  expressed  themselves  in  that  feverish 
agitation  that  some  take  to  be  the  essence  of  all.  Meanwhile 


WHAT  IS   VITAL  IN   CHRISTIANITY?  433 

there  are  those  who  to-day  try  to  keep  religion  alive  mainly  as  a 
more  or  less  medicinal  influence,  a  sort  of  disinfectant  or  anodyne, 
that  may  perhaps  still  prove  its  value  to  a  doubting  world  by 
curing  dyspepsia,  or  by  removing  nervous  worries.  Over  against 
such  modern  tendencies,  —  humane,  but  still,  as  interpretations 
of  the  true  essence  of  religion,  essentially  trivial,  —  there  are 
those  who  see  no  hope  except  in  holding  fast  by  a  literal  accept 
ance  of  tradition.  There  are,  finally,  those  who  undertake  the 
task,  lofty  indeed,  but  still,  as  I  think,  hopeless,  —  the  task  of 
restoring  what  they  call  a  purely  primitive  Christianity.  Now  I 
am  no  disciple  of  Eckhart;  but  I  am  sure  that  whatever  is  vital 
in  Christianity  concerns  in  fact  the  relation  of  the  real  individual 
human  person  to  the  real  God.  To  the  minds  of  the  people  whose 
religious  tradition  we  have  inherited  this  relation  first  came 
through  the  symbolic  interpretation  that  the  early  church  gave 
to  the  life  of  the  master.  It  is  this  symbolic  interpretation  which 
is  the  historical  legacy  of  the  church.  It  is  the  genuine  and 
eternal  truth  that  lies  behind  this  symbol  which  constitutes 
what  is  indeed  vital  to  Christianity.  I  personally  regard  the 
supernatural  narratives  in  which  the  church  embodied  its  faith 
simply  as  symbols,  —  the  product  indeed  of  no  man's  effort  to 
deceive,  but  of  the  religious  imagination  of  the  great  constructive 
age  of  the  early  church.  I  also  hold  that  the  truth  which  lies  be 
hind  these  symbols  is  capable  of  a  perfectly  rational  statement, 
that  this  statement  lies  in  the  direction  which  Eckhart,  mistaken 
as  he  often  was,  has  indicated  to  us.  The  truth  in  question  is 
independent  of  the  legends.  It  relates  to  eternal  spiritual  facts. 
I  maintain  also  that  those  who,  in  various  ages  of  the  church, 
and  in  various  ways,  have  tried  to  define  and  to  insist  upon  what 
they  have  called  the  "Essential  Christ,"  as  distinguished  from 
the  historical  Christ,  have  been  nearing  in  various  degrees  the 
comprehension  of  what  is  vital  in  Christianity. 


What  is  true  must  be  capable  of  expression  apart  from  legends. 
What  is  eternally  true  may  indeed  come  to  our  human  knowl 
edge  through  any  event  that  happens  to  bring  the  truth  in 
question  to  our  notice;  but,  once  learned,  this  truth  may  be  seen 
to  be  independent  of  the  historical  events,  whatever  they  were, 


434  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

which  brought  about  our  own  insight.  And  the  truth  about  the 
incarnation  and  the  atonement  seems  to  me  to  be  statable  in 
terms  which  I  must  next  briefly  indicate. 

First,  God,  as  our  philosophy  ought  to  conceive  him,  is  indeed 
a  spirit  and  a  person;  but  he  is  not  a  being  who  exists  in  separa 
tion  from  the  world,  simply  as  its  external  creator.  He  expresses 
himself  in  the  world;  and  the  world  is  simply  his  own  life,  as  he 
consciously  lives  it  out.  To  use  an  inadequate  figure,  God  ex 
presses  himself  in  the  world  as  an  artist  expresses  himself  in  the 
poems  and  the  characters,  in  the  music  or  in  the  other  artistic 
creations,  that  arise  within  the  artist's  consciousness  and  that 
for  him  and  in  him  consciously  embody  his  will.  Or  again,  God 
is  this  entire  world,  viewed,  so  to  speak,  from  above  and  in  its 
wholeness  as  an  infinitely  complex  life  which  in  an  endless  series 
of  temporal  processes  embodies  a  single  divine  idea.  You  can 
indeed  distinguish,  and  should  distinguish,  between  the  world 
as  our  common  sense,  properly  but  fragmentarily,  has  to  view  it, 
and  as  our  sciences  study  it,  —  between  this  phenomenal  world, 
I  say,  and  God,  who  is  infinitely  more  than  any  finite  system  of 
natural  facts  or  of  human  lives  can  express.  But  this  distinction 
between  God  and  world  means  no  separation.  Our  world  is  the 
fragmentary  phenomenon  that  we  see.  God  is  the  conscious 
meaning  that  expresses  itself  in  and  through  the  totality  of  all 
phenomena.  The  world,  taken  as  a  mass  of  happenings  in  time, 
of  events,  of  natural  processes,  of  single  lives,  is  nowhere,  and  at 
no  time,  any  complete  expression  of  the  divine  will.  But  the 
entire  world,  of  which  our  known  world  is  a  fragment,  —  the 
totality  of  what  is,  past,  present,  and  future,  the  totality  of  what 
is  physical  and  of  what  is  mental,  of  what  is  temporal  and  of 
what  is  enduring,  —  this  entire  world  is  present  at  once  to  the 
eternal  divine  consciousness  as  a  single  whole,  and  this  whole 
is  what  the  absolute  chooses  as  his  own  expression,  and  is  what 
he  is  conscious  of  choosing  as  his  own  life.  In  this  entire  world 
God  sees  himself  lived  out.  This  world,  when  taken  in  its  whole 
ness,  is  at  once  the  object  of  the  divine  knowledge  and  the  deed 
wherein  is  embodied  the  divine  will.  Like  the  Logos  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  this  entire  world  is  not  only  with  God,  but  is 
God. 

As  you  see,  I  state  this  doctrine,  for  the  moment,  quite  sum- 


WHAT   IS   VITAL  IN   CHRISTIANITY?  435 

marily  and  dogmatically.  Only  an  extensive  and  elaborate  philo 
sophical  discussion  could  show  you  why  I  hold  this  doctrine  to  be 
true.  Most  of  you,  however,  have  heard  of  some  such  doctrine 
as  the  theory  of  the  Divine  Immanence.  Some  of  you  are  aware 
that  such  an  interpretation  of  the  nature  of  God  constitutes 
what  is  called  philosophical  Idealism.  I  am  not  here  defending, 
nor  even  expounding,  this  doctrine.  I  believe,  however,  that 
this  is  the  view  of  the  divine  nature  which  the  church  has  always 
more  or  less  intuitively  felt  to  be  true,  and  has  tried  to  express, 
despite  the  fact  that  my  own  formulation  of  this  doctrine  in 
cludes  some  features  which  in  the  course  of  the  past  history  of 
dogma  have  been  upon  occasion  formally  condemned  as  heresy 
by  various  church  authorities.  But  for  my  part  I  had  rather  be 
a  heretic,  and  appreciate  the  vital  meaning  of  what  the  church 
has  always  tried  to  teach,  than  accept  this  or  that  traditional 
formulation,  but  be  unable  to  grasp  its  religiously  significant 
spirit. 

Dogmatically,  then,  I  state  what,  indeed,  if  there  were  time, 
I  ought  to  expound  and  to  defend  on  purely  rational  grounds. 
God  and  his  world  are  one.  And  this  unity  is  not  a  dead  natural 
fact.  It  is  the  unity  of  a  conscious  life,  in  which,  in  the  course  of 
infinite  time,  a  divine  plan,  an  endlessly  complex  and  yet  per 
fectly  definite  spiritual  idea,  gets  expressed  in  the  lives  of  count 
less  finite  beings  and  yet  with  the  unity  of  a  single  universal  life. 

Whoever  hears  this  doctrine  stated,  asks,  however,  at  once  a 
question,  —  the  deepest,  and  also  the  most  tragic  question  of  our 
present  poor  human  existence:  Why,  then,  if  the  world  is  the 
divine  life  embodied,  is  there  so  much  evil  in  it,  —  so  much  dark 
ness,  ignorance,  misery,  disappointment,  warfare,  hatred,  dis 
ease,  death?  —  in  brief,  why  is  the  world  as  we  know  it  full  of 
the  unreasonable?  Are  all  these  gloomy  facts  but  illusions,  bad 
dreams  of  our  finite  existence,  —  facts  unknown  to  the  very  God 
who  is,  and  who  knows,  all  truth?  No,  —  that  cannot  be  the 
answer;  for  then  the  question  would  recur:  Why  are  these  our 
endlessly  tragic  illusions  permitted?  Why  are  we  allowed  by  the 
world-plan  to  be  so  unreasonable  as  to  dream  these  bad  dreams 
which  fill  our  finite  life,  and  which  in  a  way  constitute  this  finite 
life?  And  that  question  would  then  be  precisely  equivalent  to 
the  former  question,  and  just  as  hard  to  solve.  In  brief,  the  prob- 


436  JOSIAH   ROYCE 

lem  of  evil  is  the  great  problem  that  stands  between  our  ordinary- 
finite  view  and  experience  of  life  on  the  one  hand  and  our  con 
sciousness  of  the  reasonableness  and  the  unity  of  the  divine  life 
on  the  other  hand. 

Has  this  problem  of  evil  any  solution?  I  believe  that  it  has  a 
solution,  and  that  this  solution  has  long  since  been  in  substance 
grasped  and  figured  forth  in  symbolic  forms  by  the  higher  reli 
gious  consciousness  of  our  race.  This  solution,  not  abstractly 
stated,  but  intuitively  grasped,  has  also  expressed  itself  in  the 
lives  of  the  wisest  and  best  of  the  moral  heroes  of  all  races  and 
nations  of  men.  The  value  of  suffering,  the  good  that  is  at  the 
heart  of  evil,  lies  in  the  spiritual  triumphs  that  the  endurance 
and  the  overcoming  of  evil  can  bring  to  those  who  learn  the  hard, 
the  deep  but  glorious,  lesson  of  life.  And  of  all  the  spiritual  tri 
umphs  that  the  presence  of  evil  makes  possible,  the  noblest  is 
that  which  is  won  when  a  man  is  ready,  not  merely  to  bear  the 
ills  of  fortune  tranquilly  if  they  come,  as  the  Stoic  moralists 
required  their  followers  to  do,  but  when  one  is  willing  to  suffer 
vicariously,  freely,  devotedly,  ills  that  he  might  have  avoided, 
but  that  the  cause  to  which  he  is  loyal,  and  the  errors  and  sins 
that  he  himself  did  not  commit,  call  upon  him  to  suffer  in  order 
that  the  world  may  be  brought  nearer  to  its  destined  union  with 
the  divine.  In  brief,  as  the  mystics  themselves  often  have  said, 
sorrow  —  wisely  encountered  and  freely  borne  —  is  one  of  the 
most  precious  privileges  of  the  spiritual  life.  There  is  a  certain 
lofty  peace  in  triumphing  over  sorrow,  which  brings  us  to  a  con 
sciousness  of  whatever  is  divine  in  life,  in  a  way  that  mere  joy, 
untroubled  and  unwon,  can  never  make  known  to  us.  Perfect 
through  suffering,  —  that  is  the  universal,  the  absolutely  neces 
sary  law  of  the  higher  spiritual  life.  It  is  a  law  that  holds  for 
God  and  for  man,  for  those  amongst  men  who  have  already 
become  enlightened  through  learning  the  true  lessons  of  their 
own  sorrows,  and  for  those  who,  full  of  hope,  still  look  forward 
to  a  life  from  which  they  in  the  main  anticipate  joy  and  worldly 
success,  and  who  have  yet  to  learn  that  the  highest  good  of  life  is 
to  come  to  them  through  whatever  willing  endurance  of  hardness 
they,  as  good  soldiers  of  their  chosen  loyal  service,  shall  learn  to 
choose  or  to  endure  as  their  offering  to  their  sacred  cause.  This 
doctrine  that  I  now  state  to  you  is  indeed  no  ascetic  doctrine.  It 


WHAT  IS   VITAL   IN   CHRISTIANITY?  437 

does  not  for  a  moment  imply  that  joy  is  a  sin,  or  an  evil  symp 
tom.  What  it  does  assert  is  that  as  long  as  the  joys  and  successes 
which  you  seek  are  expected  and  sought  by  you  simply  as  good 
fortune,  which  you  try  to  win  through  mere  cleverness  — 
through  mere  technical  skill  in  the  arts  of  controlling  fortune, — 
so  long,  I  say,  as  this  is  your  view  of  life,  you  know  neither  God's 
purpose  nor  the  truth  about  man's  destiny.  Our  always  poor  and 
defective  skill  in  controlling  fortune  is  indeed  a  valuable  part 
of  our  reasonableness,  since  it  is  the  natural  basis  upon  which  a 
higher  spiritual  life  may  be  built.  Hence  the  word,  "Young  men, 
be  strong,"  and  the  common-sense  injunction,  "Be  skilful,  be 
practical,"  are  good  counsel.  And  so  health,  and  physical 
prowess,  and  inner  cheerfulness,  are  indeed  wisely  viewed  as 
natural  foundations  for  a  higher  life.  But  the  higher  life  itself 
begins  only  when  your  health  and  your  strength  and  your  skill 
and  your  good  cheer  appear  to  you  merely  as  talents,  few  or 
many,  which  you  propose  to  devote,  to  surrender,  to  the  divine 
order,  to  whatever  ideal  cause  most  inspires  your  loyalty,  and 
gives  sense  and  divine  dignity  to  your  life,  —  talents,  I  say,  that 
you  intend  to  return  to  your  master  with  usury.  And  the  work 
of  the  higher  life  consists,  not  in  winning  good  fortune,  but 
in  transmuting  all  the  transient  values  of  fortune  into  eternal 
values.  This  you  best  do  when  you  learn  by  experience  how  your 
worst  fortune  may  be  glorified,  through  wise  resolve,  and  through 
the  grace  that  comes  from  your  conscious  union  with  the  divine, 
into  something  far  better  than  any  good  fortune  could  give  to 
you;  namely,  into  a  knowledge  of  how  God  himself  endures  evil, 
and  triumphs  over  it,  and  lifts  it  out  of  itself,  and  wins  it  over  to 
the  service  of  good. 

The  true  and  highest  values  of  the  spiritual  world  consist,  I 
say,  in  the  triumph  over  suffering,  over  sorrow,  and  over  unrea 
sonableness  ;  and  the  triumph  over  these  things  may  appear  in  our 
human  lives  in  three  forms :  First,  as  mere  personal  fortitude,  — 
as  the  stoical  virtues  in  their  simplest  expression.  The  stoical 
virtues  are  the  most  elementary  stage  of  the  higher  spiritual  life. 
Fortitude  is  indeed  required  of  every  conscious  agent  who  has  con 
trol  over  himself  at  all.  And  fortitude,  even  in  this  simplest  form  as 
manly  and  strenuous  endurance,  teaches  you  eternal  values  that 
you  can  never  learn  unless  you  first  meet  with  positive  ills  of  for- 


438  JOSIAH   ROYCE 

tune,  and  then  force  yourself  to  bear  them  in  the  loyal  service  of 
your  cause.  Willing  endurance  of  suffering  and  grief  is  the  price 
that  you  have  to  pay  for  conscious  fidelity  to  any  cause  that  is 
vast  enough  to  be  worthy  of  the  loyalty  of  a  lifetime.  And  thus 
no  moral  agent  can  be  made  perfect  except  through  suffering  borne 
in  the  service  of  his  cause.  Secondly,  the  triumph  over  suffering 
appears  in  the  higher  form  of  that  conscious  union  with  the 
divine  plan  which  occurs  when  you  learn  that  love,  and  loyalty, 
and  the  idealizing  of  life,  and  the  most  precious  and  sacred  of  all 
human  relationships,  are  raised  to  their  highest  levels,  are  glori 
fied,  only  when  we  not  merely  learn  in  our  own  personal  case  to 
suffer,  to  sorrow,  to  endure,  and  be  spiritually  strong,  but  when 
we  learn  to  do  these  things  together  with  our  own  brethren.  For 
the  comradeship  of  those  who  willingly  practice  fortitude  not 
merely  as  a  private  virtue,  but  as  brethren  in  sorrow,  is  a  deeper, 
a  sweeter,  a  more  blessed  comradeship  than  ever  is  that  of  the 
lovers  who  have  not  yet  been  tried  so  as  by  fire.  Then  the  deep 
est  trials  of  life  come  to  you  and  your  friend  together;  and  when, 
after  the  poor  human  heart  has  indeed  endured  what  for  the 
time  it  is  able  to  bear  of  anguish,  it  finds  its  little  moment  of  rest, 
and  when  you  are  able  once  more  to  clasp  the  dear  hand  that 
would  help  if  it  could,  and  to  look  afresh  into  your  friend's  eyes 
and  to  see  there  the  light  of  love  as  you  could  never  see  it  before, 
—  then,  even  in  the  darkness  of  this  world,  you  catch  some  faint 
far-off  glimpse  of  how  the  spirit  may  yet  triumph  despite  all,  and 
of  why  sorrow  may  reveal  to  us,  as  we  sorrow  and  endure  to 
gether,  what  we  should  never  have  known  of  life,  and  of  love, 
and  of  each  other,  and  of  the  high  places  of  the  spirit,  if  this  cup 
had  been  permitted  to  pass  from  us.  But  thirdly,  and  best,  the 
triumph  of  the  spirit  over  suffering  is  revealed  to  us  not  merely 
when  we  endure,  when  we  learn  through  sorrow  to  prize  our 
brethren  more,  and  when  we  learn  to  see  new  powers  in  them 
and  even  in  our  poor  selves,  powers  such  as  only  sorrow  could 
bring  to  light,  —  but  when  we  also  turn  back  from  such  experi 
ences  to  real  life  again,  remembering  that  sorrow's  greatest  les 
son  is  the  duty  of  offering  ourselves  more  than  ever  to  the  prac 
tical  service  of  some  divine  cause  in  this  world.  When  one  is 
stung  to  the  heart  and  seemingly  wholly  overcome  by  the 
wounds  of  fortune,  it  sometimes  chances  that  he  learns  after  a 


WHAT  IS   VITAL  IN   CHRISTIANITY?  439 

while  to  arise  from  his  agony,  with  the  word:  "Well  then,  if, 
whether  by  my  own  fault  or  without  it,  I  must  descend  into  hell, 
I  will  remember  that  in  this  place  of  sorrow  there  are  the  other 
souls  in  torment,  seeking  light;  I  will  help  them  to  awake  and 
arise.  As  I  enter  I  will  open  the  gates  of  hell  that  they  may  go 
forth."  Whatever  happens  to  me,  I  say,  this  is  a  possible  result 
of  sorrow.  I  have  known  those  men  and  women  who  could  learn 
such  a  lesson  from  sorrow  and  who  could  practice  it.  These  are 
the  ones  who,  coming  up  through  great  tribulation,  show  us  the 
highest  glimpse  that  we  have  in  this  life  of  the  triumph  of  the 
spirit  over  sorrow.  But  these  are  the  ones  who  are  willing  to 
suffer  vicariously,  to  give  their  lives  as  a  ransom  for  many. 
These  tell  us  what  atonement  means. 

Well,  these  are,  after  all,  but  glimpses  of  truth.  But  they 
show  us  why  the  same  law  holds  for  all  the  highest  spiritual  life. 
They  show  us  that  God  too  must  sorrow  in  order  that  he  may 
triumph. 

Now  the  true  doctrine  of  the  incarnation  and  of  the  atonement 
is,  in  its  essence,  simply  the  conception  of  God's  nature  which 
this  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil  requires.  First,  God  expresses 
himself  in  this  world  of  finitude,  incarnates  himself  in  this  realm 
of  human  imperfection,  but  does  so  in  order  that  through  finitude 
and  imperfection,  and  sorrow  and  temporal  loss,  he  may  win  in 
the  eternal  world  (that  is,  precisely,  in  the  conscious  unity  of  his 
whole  life)  his  spiritual  triumph  over  evil.  In  this  triumph  con 
sists  his  highest  good,  and  ours.  It  is  God's  true  and  eternal 
triumph  that  speaks  to  us  through  the  well-known  word:  "In 
this  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation.  But  fear  not;  I  have  over 
come  the  world."  Mark,  I  do  not  say  that  we,  just  as  we  natu 
rally  are,  are  already  the  true  and  complete  incarnation  of  God. 
No,  it  is  in  overcoming  evil,  in  rising  above  our  natural  unreason 
ableness,  in  looking  towards  the  divine  unity,  that  we  seek  what 
Eckhart  so  well  expressed  when  he  said,  Let  God  be  born  in  the 
soul.  Hence  the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation  is  no  doctrine  of 
the  natural  divinity  of  man.  It  is  the  doctrine  which  teaches 
that  the  world  will  desires  our  unity  with  the  universal  purpose, 
that  God  will  be  born  in  us  and  through  our  consent,  that  the 
whole  meaning  of  our  life  is  that  it  shall  transmute  transient 
and  temporal  values  into  eternal  meanings.  Humanity  becomes 


440  JOSIAH   ROYCE 

conscious  God  incarnate  only  in  so  far  as  humanity  looks  god- 
wards  ;  that  is,  in  the  direction  of  the  whole  unity  of  the  rational 
spiritual  life. 

And  now,  secondly,  the  true  doctrine  of  the  atonement  seems 
to  me  simply  this:  We,  as  we  temporally  and  transiently  are, 
are  destined  to  win  our  union  with  the  divine  only  through 
learning  to  triumph  over  our  own  evil,  over  the  griefs  of  fortune, 
over  the  unreasonableness  and  the  sin  that  now  beset  us.  This 
conquest  we  never  accomplish  alone.  As  the  mother  that  bore 
you  suffered,  so  the  world  suffers  for  you  and  through  and  in  you 
until  you  win  your  peace  in  union  with  the  divine  will.  Upon 
such  suffering  you  actually  depend  for  your  natural  existence, 
for  the  toleration  which  your  imperfect  self  constantly  demands 
from  the  world,  for  the  help  that  your  helplessness  so  often  needs. 
When  you  sorrow,  then,  remember  that  God  sorrows,  —  sorrows 
in  you,  since  in  all  your  finitude  you  still  are  part  of  his  life;  sor 
rows  for  you,  since  it  is  the  intent  of  the  divine  spirit,  in  the  plan 
of  its  reasonable  world,  that  you  should  not  remain  what  you 
now  are;  and  sorrows,  too,  in  waiting  for  higher  fulfilment,  since 
indeed  the  whole  universe  needs  your  spiritual  triumph  for  the 
sake  of  its  completion. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  doctrine  of  the  atonement  means  that 
there  is  never  any  completed  spiritual  triumph  over  sorrow 
which  is  not  accompanied  with  the  willingness  to  suffer  vicari 
ously;  that  is,  with  the  will  not  merely  to  endure  bravely,  but  to 
force  one's  very  sorrow  to  be  an  aid  to  the  common  cause  of  all 
mankind,  to  give  one's  life  as  a  ransom  for  one's  cause,  to  use 
one's  bitterest  and  most  crushing  grief  as  a  means  towards  the 
raising  of  all  life  to  the  divine  level.  It  is  not  enough  to  endure. 
Your  duty  is  to  make  your  grief  a  source  of  blessing.  Thus  only 
can  sorrow  bring  you  into  conscious  touch  with  the  universal 
life. 

Now  all  this  teaching  is  old.  The  church  began  to  learn  its 
own  version  of  this  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil  when  first  it 
sorrowed  over  its  lost  master;  when  first  it  began  to  say:  "It 
was  needful  that  Christ  should  suffer";  when  first  in  vision  and 
in  legend  it  began  to  conceive  its  glorified  Lord.  When  later  it 
said,  "In  the  God-man  Christ  God  suffered,  once  for  all  and  in 
the  flesh,  to  save  us;  in  him  alone  the  Word  became  flesh  and 


WHAT  IS  VITAL  IN   CHRISTIANITY?  441 

dwelt  among  us,"  the  forms  of  its  religious  imagination  were 
transient,  but  the  truth  of  which  these  forms  were  the  symbol 
was  everlasting.  And  we  sum  up  this  truth  in  two  theses :  First, 
God  wins  perfection  through  expressing  himself  in  a  finite  life 
and  triumphing  over  and  through  its  very  finitude.  And  sec 
ondly,  Our  sorrow  is  God's  sorrow.  God  means  to  express  him 
self  by  winning  us  through  the  very  triumph  over  evil  to  unity 
with  the  perfect  life;  and  therefore  our  fulfilment,  like  our  exist 
ence,  is  due  to  the  sorrow  and  the  triumph  of  God  himself.  These 
two  theses  express,  I  believe,  what  is  vital  in  Christianity. 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION 

BY   BARRETT   WENDELL 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Maryland,  at  Johns  Hopkins  University,  April 
24,  1909.  From  The  Mystery  of  Education  and  Other  Academic  Performances,  by 
Barrett  Wendell.  Copyright,  1909,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

OF  all  the  honors  which  can  come  to  an  American  man  of  let 
ters,  none  is  more  insidiously  flattering  than  such  an  invitation 
as  yours;  for  the  sum  and  substance  of  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  orator's 
message  must  always  be  the  expression  of  his  own  opinion  — 
a  matter  generally  and  relentlessly  assumed  of  interest  only  to 
himself.  Invited  to  give  it  to  others,  his  first  acknowledgment  of 
the  privilege  must  be  the  expression  of  humble  and  hearty  thanks 
to  those  whose  goodness  and  loving-kindness  have  afforded  him 
the  opportunity.  His  next  must  be  the  perplexing  inquiry  of 
what  range  of  opinion  to  set  forth.  Things  in  general  offer  an 
inconveniently  extensive  field  of  observation.  Some  corner 
thereof,  not  too  highly  illuminated,  must  evidently  be  sought; 
and  if  that  corner  chance  to  be  habitually  a  lurking-ground  of  his 
hearers,  as  well  as  of  his  own,  so  much  the  better  for  everybody. 
This  line  of  exploration  has  brought  me,  without  much  hesita 
tion,  to  a  region  familiar  to  us  all.  Your  generous  summons  has 
called  me  from  the  eldest  conservatory  of  education  in  our  coun 
try  to  gladden,  or  sadden,  a  passing  hour  in  the  history  of  its 
most  luxuriant  seminary.  I  shall  make  no  further  apology  for 
inviting  your  attention  to  some  opinions  of  mine  concerning  the 
Mystery  of  Education. 

For  education,  as  we  know  it  nowadays,  is  indisputably  a 
mystery,  in  the  full,  baffling  sense  of  that  fascinatingly  ambigu 
ous  word.  It  is  the  occupation,  the  trade  if  you  will,  the  metier 
or  mestier  or  ministerium,  with  which  the  waking  lives  of  most  of 
us  are  concerned;  and,  furthermore,  there  hovers  about  it,  im 
palpable  but  certain,  some  such  quivering  atmosphere  of  filmy, 
phantasmagoric  glamor  as  made  unearthly  to  profane  eyes  the 
vanished  and  impenetrable  mysteries  of  primal  Greece. 

What  these  were,  one  begins  to  wonder;  and,  if  one  be  old 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  443 

enough  to  have  experienced  the  obstacles  to  culture  presented  by 
despairingly  thumbed  pages  of  Liddell  and  Scott,  one  turns,  if 
only  from  schoolboy  habit,  to  see  what  they  have  to  say  about  it. 
Mvcmjpiov  is  there,  safe  and  sound;  it  proves  to  mean  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  mystery  —  the  kind  of  thing  immemorially 
practised  at  Eleusis,  and  still  perhaps  vital  to  the  being  of  those 
among  our  fellow-citizens  who  enjoy  describing  themselves  by 
knightly  titles,  and  walking  about  in  fantastically  uniformed 
processions.  But  the  saving  grace  of  Liddell  and  Scott  is  an 
absorbing  passion  for  getting  at  the  roots  of  things,  if  they  can. 
So  a  parenthesized  reference  leads  us  straight  from  Mvo-Tijpiov 
to  M  1*77775  —  which  fragment  of  musty  lore  turns  out  to  signify 
one  initiated.  Even  though  still  nowhere,  we  may  feel,  we  are 
beginning  to  start  on  the  road  somewhere.  A  mystery  clearly 
involves  initiation;  and  initiation  implies  that,  if  the  mystery  is 
to  persist,  somebody  —  and,  in  all  likelihood,  almost  everybody 
- —  has  got  to  be  left  out.  Furthermore,  to  revert  to  Liddell  and 
Scott,  the  very  existence  of  the  substantive  MUO-TTJ?  hangs  on 
that  of  the  verb  Mueo>  —  to  initiate;  and  this  calls  to  mind  the 
obvious  truth  that  in  order  to  initiate  anybody  into  anything 
there  must  always  be  somebody  else  to  perform  the  process  of 
initiation.  What  manner  of  somebody  this  may  be,  Liddell  and 
Scott  finally  proceed  to  intimate.  Mveo)  —  to  initiate  —  they 
derive  from  Mvco,  where  they  leave  us;  and  M.VCO  they  define  "to 
close,  to  shut;  especially  of  the  lips  and  eyes,  to  wink"  Mvo> 
seems  elemental,  at  least  so  far  as  Liddell  and  Scott  go;  according 
to  them,  it  is  derived  from  nothing  short  of  the  heart  of  nature. 
Wherefore,  perhaps,  they  freely  permit  themselves  that  beauti 
fully  imaginative  pregnancy  of  definition.  As  one  puts  aside  the 
exhausted  volume,  one  can  hardly  help  reflecting  that  if  we  keep 
our  lips  closed  and  solemnly  wink  at  one  another,  nobody  else 
need  ever  know  that  we  do  not  know  all  about  it. 

Some  of  us  do,  perhaps ;  beyond  question  a  good  many  of  us 
talk  as  if  we  did,  and  write,  and  publish,  until  less  confident 
heads  begin  to  swim  with  the  sad  self  -consciousness  of  compara 
tive  ignorance.  Of  a  few  facts  we  can  happily  feel  sure.  This 
Education  —  with  a  fine,  big  capital  E  —  is  doubly  a  mystery: 
it  is  not  only  a  trade  or  occupation,  but,  as  I  pointed  out  a  good 
many  years  ago,  it  is  such  an  object  of  faith  in  these  United  States 


444  BARRETT  WENDELL 

of  America,  and  perhaps  everywhere  else  in  this  twentieth  cen 
tury  of  the  Christian  Era,  that  we  may  fairly  regard  it  as  a  cult, 
almost  as  a  religion.  Those  of  us  who,  for  better  or  worse,  are 
called  on,  so  far  as  may  be  in  our  power,  to  preserve  and  to  guide 
it,  are  charged  with  an  office  almost  priestly.  Harvard  is  not 
only  a  conservatory  nor  Johns  Hopkins  only  a  seminary;  both 
are  sanctuaries.  Membership  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  conse 
quently  has  its  grave  side  as  well  as  its  happy;  for  it  marks  one 
special  degree  of  initiation  into  a  mystery  held  peculiarly  rever 
end  in  our  own  time  and  country. 

So  long  as  reverence  preserves  a  mystery,  initiates  of  any 
degree  may  rest  content.  In  any  venerable  mystery,  however,  — 
trade  or  cult,  —  one  great  virtue  has  always  been  difficulty  of 
access.  Those  who  are  not  admitted  to  its  secrets,  never  quite 
sure  of  what  the  secrets  are,  hold  them  in  awful  respect.  Even 
though  the  secrets  themselves  be  trivial  or  outworn,  too,  the  fact 
that  whoever  attains  them  must  work  vigilantly,  and  bear  sharp 
scrutiny,  makes  the  mere  attainment  a  token  of  power;  for  the 
masters  are  thus  chosen  by  a  pitiless  process  of  selection  —  a 
process  favorable  to  the  quality  of  man  or  beast.  The  moment 
the  process  of  selection  begins  to  relax,  though,  —  the  moment 
people  begin  to  attain  something  which  looks  like  initiation 
without  arduous  effort,  vigorous  concentration,  devoted  self -sac 
rifice, — the  great  safeguard  of  any  mystery  begins  to  weaken; 
the  mystery  itself,  indeed,  is  threatened  with  dissipation.  Now, 
to  my  mind,  this  reverend  mystery  of  ours  is  not  at  present  so 
secure  from  dissipation  as  we  are  disposed  comfortably  to  assume. 
A  good  many  facts,  at  least,  generally  supposed  to  be  tokens  of 
its  enduring  strength,  may  certainly  be  presented  rather  in  the 
light  of  something  like  symptoms  of  disease. 

The  unprecedented  extension  of  popular  education  at  public 
expense,  for  example,  is  magnificently  generous.  We  are  proud 
of  our  free  schools,  primary,  secondary,  and  technical;  of  our  free 
universities,  and  of  our  philanthropic  schemes  for  bringing 
academic  degrees  by  rural  delivery  to  the  doors  of  laborers,  and 
their  sons  and  their  daughters.  All  the  same,  nobody  can  deny 
that  this  process  does  a  good  deal  to  make  easy  what  used  to  be 
hard,  and  thus  to  impair  its  moral  value.  Again,  something  sim 
ilar  is  true  of  our  public  library  system.  When  to  learn  German 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  445 

in  Massachusetts  a  subsequently  eminent  scholar  had  to  import 
both  his  text  and  his  dictionary,  he  knew  that  they  were  precious 
tools,  with  which  he  set  to  work  heroically  and  successfully. 
Nowadays,  when  everybody  can  have  such  things  for  nothing, 
people  seem  generally  disposed  to  regard  them  only  as  tiresome 
playthings.  Still  again,  when  school  books  had  to  be  bought,  the 
children  who  owned  them  —  or  at  worst  the  parents  of  such 
children  —  were  reminded,  if  only  by  the  demand  on  their  pock 
ets,  that  books  are,  or  ought  to  be,  objects  of  value.  In  these 
new  times,  when  every  public  school  throughout  our  country 
provides  free  text-books  as  well  as  free  instruction,  the  pauperi 
zation  of  learning  has  gone  so  far  that  you  can  hardly  persuade 
well-to-do  undergraduates  at  our  older  colleges  to  regard  the 
expenditure  of  fifteen  or  twenty  dollars  a  year  for  books  they 
must  study  as  anything  else  than  an  imposition  on  your  part, 
impelling  them  on  theirs  to  wasteful  extravagance. 

Another  and  a  different  force  at  present  tending  to  dissipate 
our  mystery  may  perhaps  give  rise  to  more  divergence  of  opinion ; 
but  whether  you  welcome  it  or  deplore  it,  you  cannot  neglect  it. 
A  century  ago,  education,  generally  confined  to  men,  enjoyed 
the  kind  of  respect  which  we  have  been  accustomed,  from  eldest 
time,  to  associate  with  the  conception  of  virility.  At  present  the 
general  practice  of  coeducation  combines  with  the  luxuriant 
growth  of  colleges,  and  the  like,  especially  designed  for  women 
—  who  mature  earlier  than  men,  and  consequently  listen  and 
recite  somewhat  more  acceptably  than  normal  males  under  the 
age  of  twenty-five  —  to  produce  a  latent  suspicion  that  educa 
tion,  if  not  learning,  may  soon  prove  something  like  what  a 
skeptical  Italian  once  pronounced  the  Catholic  Church  to  be  — 
cosa  eccellente  per  le  donne.  On  this  point,  two  observations  occur 
to  me;  according  to  divers  authorities  the  presence  of  many 
women  in  any  given  kind  of  classes  —  such  as  those  in  English 
literature  —  generally  drives  men,  for  self -protection,  into  other 
fields  of  culture;  and  one  reason  why  may  perhaps  be  shadowed 
in  a  somewhat  frivolous  comment  on  American  manners  lately 
made  by  an  evidently  unsympathetic  observer  —  namely,  that 
the  regular  feminine  form  of  the  word  cad  in  the  United  States 
appears  to  be  co-ed. 

That  this  pleasantry,  whatever  you  may  think  of  its  taste,  is 


446  BARRETT  WENDELL 

comprehensive,  nobody  would  pretend.  It  brings  instantly  to 
mind,  in  contradiction,  an  incident  said  to  have  occurred  not 
long  ago  at  an  American  public  school  for  girls.  A  skilful  and 
devoted  woman  there  had  long  maintained  in  her  classes  a  high 
standard  of  instruction,  attested  by  unflinchingly  definite  marks 
or  grades.  The  story  runs  that  a  new  superintendent  disap 
proved  her  methods.  If  in  a  given  class,  for  example,  no  pupil 
displayed  anything  higher  than  mediocrity,  no  grades  of  special 
commendation  were  returned.  The  superintendent  directed  her 
thereafter  to  give  the  best  pupil  in  any  class  the  highest  mark 
allowed  by  the  scale  —  one  hundred  per  cent,  let  us  say  —  and 
to  grade  the  others  according  to  this  fortuitous  standard.  The 
process  he  is  understood  to  have  believed  encouraging  to  the 
unfortunate  or  the  stupid.  The  teacher  declined  to  obey  him, 
conscientiously  holding  that  a  high  grade  ought  to  certify  high 
scholarship.  For  this  insubordination  she  was  presently  re 
moved  to  a  position  of  less  dignity.  In  other  words,  she  was 
severely  disciplined  for  an  attempt  to  maintain  a  definite  stand 
ard  of  attainment.  As  a  natural  consequence,  the  reports  of  her 
successor  indicated  a  gratifying  improvement  in  the  quality  of 
pupils  at  the  school  in  question,  which  made  almost  everybody 
happier;  and,  as  the  good  woman  with  unpractical  ideals  hap 
pened  to  die  within  the  year,  no  harm  has  ensued  to  anybody  or 
anything  except  this  reverend  mystery  of  ours.  The  benevolent 
lowering  of  standard  has  perhaps  done  something  toward  a  local 
dissipation  of  its  glamor. 

Now  whether  such  matters  as  these  seem  portentous  of  better 
days  to  come,  or  of  worse,  we  can  hardly  deny  that  they  concern 
us,  so  far  as  we  are  priests  of  the  cult  of  education  or  initiates  of 
its  mystery.  Very  likely  the  mystery  had  grown  too  dense  — 
some  manner  of  dissipation  may  doubtless  be  good  for  it.  We 
are  bound  to  acknowledge,  however,  that  a  considerable  process 
of  dissipation  is  now  going  on,  and  therefore  that  we  cannot  pru 
dently  rely  much  longer  on  the  old  formulas  and  rituals.  Taking 
things  at  their  very  best,  we  cannot  much  longer  rest  assured 
that  those  who  penetrate  to  our  secrets  must  do  so  by  an  ardu 
ously  selective  process,  and  that  those  who  linger  outside  will 
justly  feel  the  courageous  dignity  of  whoever  finally  wins  his 
right  to  place  therein.  We  have  not  lost  our  basic  faith;  we  are 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  447 

beginning  to  perceive,  however,  that  if  our  faith  is  to  be  sus 
tained,  we  must  understand  it,  and  exemplify  it,  and  assert  it 
otherwise  than  in  the  past. 

For  one  fact,  I  believe,  we  must  candidly  admit.  At  this  mo 
ment  more  thought  is  given  to  education,  more  effort  devoted  to 
it,  more  expense  lavished  on  it  —  of  time  and  of  energy  as  well 
as  of  unstinted  gift,  public  and  private  —  than  ever  before.  Yet 
there  is  room  for  doubt  whether  the  practical  result  of  it  has  ever 
been  much  less  palpable.  There  are  moods,  indeed,  when  some 
of  us  must  fall  to  wondering  whether  educational  processes  were 
ever  before  so  indefinite  in  purpose,  or  quite  so  ineffectual. 

This  brings  us  to  the  question  of  what  we  mean  by  education. 
Without  attempting  precise  definition,  which  might  involve  end 
less  dispute,  we  may,  perhaps,  agree  on  two  or  three  common 
places,  sufficient  for  our  purpose.  Man,  to  begin  with,  whether 
you  take  the  word  to  mean  the  individual  or  the  species,  has  the 
misfortune  to  be  conscious.  Sooner  or  later  his  consciousness 
makes  him  aware  that,  at  least  as  he  knows  himself  by  any 
process  as  yet  developed  or  devised,  he  is  a  thing  surrounded  by 
other  things,  or  by  something  else.  A  convenient  name  for  this 
inconvenient  circumstance  is  environment.  Some  of  it,  like  his 
clothes,  his  friends,  and  his  enemies,  is  close  at  hand;  some,  like 
the  Antarctic  Pole,  or  the  Moon,  or  the  planets,  or  the  stars,  or 
space  unfathomable  and  time  without  end,  is  vanishingly  remote. 
There  it  is,  however,  everywhere  about  him,  perceived  and  un- 
perceived,  inextricably  intermingled,  various,  indefinite,  infinite 
if  you  will,  yet,  so  far  as  it  surrounds  man,  a  unit,  in  that  it  is 
not  himself. 

Now  that  innocent  little  adverb  not  implies  one  aspect  of  man's 
environment,  from  his  point  of  view  important.  Whatever  else 
not  stirs  in  your  mind,  it  cannot  help  reminding  you  of  the  un 
comfortable  fact  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  contradiction. 
Environment,  on  the  whole,  contradicts  man  with  a  persistence 
sure  at  last  to  be  fatal;  for  he  generally  suffers  a  good  deal,  and 
by  and  by  he  dies.  Meanwhile,  as  we  have  seen,  he  is  conscious; 
and  his  consciousness  manifests  itself  in  thought,  in  speech,  in 
work,  in  play,  in  behavior.  Thus  he  himself  is  part  of  the  environ 
ment  of  the  generations  which  have  kindled  to  consciousness  and 
faded  into  ashes  before  him,  and  of  those  destined  to  do  so  when 


448  BARRETT  WENDELL 

his  own  little  flame  has  flickered  out.  He  is  a  torch-bearer,  if  you 
like  the  pretty  old  metaphor,  carrying  the  gleam  of  life  through 
the  darkness  of  environment  which  must  forever  enshroud  the 
instant  concentrated  in  his  allotted  term  of  years.  The  better  he 
carries  his  torch,  the  less  flickering  the  light  thereof,  the  happier 
he,  the  happier  those  to  come,  and  the  more  content  we  may 
fancy  the  vanished  fathers  who  have  confided  it  to  his  passing 
care.  Metaphor  is  perhaps  leading  us  astray.  Without  its  aid, 
the  while,  we  might  hardly  have  understood  so  well  as  now  what 
we  mean  by  believing  that  man  is  at  his  best  when  best  adjusted 
to  his  environment;  and  that  the  best  means  we  know  of  helping 
him  toward  adjustment  is  our  reverend  mystery  of  education. 

All  of  which,  together  with  its  vagueness,  has  a  comfortable 
sound  of  precision.  If  we  are  at  all  right,  the  problem  of  educa 
tion  begins  to  look  refreshingly  simple.  Ascertain  what  environ 
ment  is,  and  what  man  is.  State  the  consequent  formula  of 
adjustment  in  approximate  terms;  —  we  all  admit  that  ultimate 
exactitude  is  beyond  human  power,  but  that  we  can  practically 
get  along  without  it.  And  there  we  are.  We  can  hand  over  the 
formula  to  those  who,  even  if  slow  to  discover  it,  can  probably 
use  it  as  well  as  we.  Thereupon  we  may  devote  our  own  energies 
to  higher  things. 

When  we  begin  to  scrutinize  environment,  however,  it  turns' 
out  to  be  disconcertingly  elusive.  Take  it  scientifically,  if  you 
will:  astronomy  reveals  to  us  a  universe  where  everything  is 
on  the  way  from  somewhere  to  somewhere  else;  so  does  geology; 
so  does  biology;  so  do  history,  and  economics,  and  sociology,  and 
physics,  and  chemistry.  The  fact  is  certain;  the  process  is 
observable  everywhere,  in  various  phases,  some  of  them  un 
pleasantly  explosive.  These  occasional  explosions,  particularly 
when  they  take  place  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  man, 
excite  alert  desire  to  know  what  they  mean.  In  certain  details, 
such  as  the  arrangement  of  electric  wires  in  the  turrets  of  war 
ships,  we  can  find  out,  and  do  something  to  mend  matters;  but 
generally  we  can  only  recognize  things  which  blow  us  up  as 
manifestations  of  a  fact  which,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  we  are 
apt  nowadays  to  describe  as  force.  Nobody  knows  what  it  is; 
nobody  knows  why  it  exists;  nobody  knows  whence  it  comes,  or 
whither  it  goes;  yet  nobody  can  help  admitting,  the  while,  that 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  449 

every  atom  of  human  environment  embodies  it,  more  or  less 
active  or  latent.  In  a  single  word,  we  can  find  no  better  defini 
tion  of  environment  than  by  declaring  it  to  be  force.  Which  may 
not  seem  to  help  us  much  until  we  remind  ourselves  that  thereby 
we  assert  it  to  be  something  never  fixed,  never  at  rest,  always 
instinct  with  the  protean  movement  of  life. 

Of  all  the  manifestations  of  force  which  consciously  affect 
man,  none  are  more  instantly  palpable  than  such  as  involve  his 
control  over  the  animate,  and  still  more  the  inanimate,  condi 
tions  of  nature.  When  he  learned  to  tame  domestic  animals,  for 
example,  his  relation  to  environment  manifestly  changed;  so, 
still  more,  it  was  changed  by  his  discovery  that  he  could  subject 
to  his  use  what  he  so  long  deluded  himself  by  supposing  to  be  the 
element  of  fire.  The  very  terms  by  which  we  still  describe  remote 
ages  of  social  development  —  the  Age  of  Stone,  the  Age  of 
Bronze,  and  so  on  —  remind  us  of  the  old  changes  of  environing 
force  which  demanded  new  adjustments  to  meet  their  unprece 
dented  conditions. 

By  the  time  when  man  began  to  record  himself,  he  was  ap 
proaching  what  we  call  civilization,  of  which,  in  ultimate  sim 
plicity,  the  chief  conditions  seem  to  have  been  mastery  of  fire,  of 
metal,  of  wheels,  and  of  sails.  The  Egyptians  had  these,  and  the 
Homeric  heroes;  the  Romans  had  little  else;  and  until  the 
Nineteenth  Century  there  was  not  much  else  anywhere,  except 
gunpowder  and  printing  presses.  Even  under  these  fairly  simple 
conditions,  adjustment  to  environment  was  no  child's  play. 
Study  thereof,  and  of  its  various  misadventures,  remains  the 
chief  occupation  of  traditional  scholarship  everywhere.  In  con 
sequence,  I  remember  few  more  pregnant  hours  than  I  passed, 
some  dozen  years  ago,  at  the  feet  of  a  Harvard  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
orator  who  pointed  out  that  the  Nineteenth  Century  —  with  its 
final  mastery  of  steam  and  electricity  —  was  really  the  begin 
ning  of  a  new  ethnological  epoch,  as  different  from  any  of  the 
earlier  periods  as  that  of  metals  was  from  that  of  chipped  flints. 
The  fact  seems  to  me  undeniable.  Environment  is  now  pressing 
on  us  under  new  conditions  and  at  an  unprecedented  rate.  It 
would  have  been  comfortable  to  follow  the  Harvard  orator  not 
only  in  his  assertions  but  in  his  conclusions.  Some  of  his  hearers, 
however,  seemed  indisposed  to  agree  without  reserve  that  every- 


450  BARRETT  WENDELL 

thing  would  always  be  all  right  if  everybody  should  devote  all 
his  energy  to  the  science  or  the  art  of  engineering. 

Environment  nowadays  —  and,  so  far  as  any  one  now  on 
earth  is  concerned,  henceforth  —  proves  to  be  not  only  force, 
but  force  in  all  the  complexity  of  unprecedented  epochal  condi 
tions,  which  nobody  can  pretend  to  understand.  The  only  cer 
tain  fact  about  it,  at  least  to  my  thinking,  is  that  on  which  I 
touched  a  moment  ago.  Throughout  our  lifetimes  the  rate  at 
which  it  has  moved  has  been  swiftly  accelerating.  Think  of  any 
thing  you  like  as  it  was  in  the  year  1900;  or,  better  still,  turn  to 
what  you  wrote  about  any  conditions  surrounding  you  ten  years 
ago.  You  may  count  yourself  a  prophet  if  you  find  your  experi 
ence  much  other  than  that  of  a  friend  of  mine  who  lately  read 
over  some  observations  on  contemporary  England  set  down,  to 
the  best  of  his  ability,  in  the  last  year  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 
He  found  hardly  a  word  to  alter,  he  said;  only,  with  old-age  pen 
sions  grinning  in  his  face,  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  Budget  voted 
to  meet  them,  the  essay  impressed  him  as  a  document  from  times 
as  remote  as  those  of  the  Tudors  or  the  Plantagenets.  Ten  years 
hence,  one  may  venture  to  guess,  the  conditions  of  to-day  may 
well  seem  prehistoric.  It  is  to  nothing  less  than  this  environment 
of  indefinitely  accelerating  force  that  modern  education  attempts 
to  adjust  man. 

This  first  term  of  our  problem  thus  proves  rather  less  manage 
able  than  it  sounded.  Contenting  ourselves,  however,  with 
humble  recognition  that  environment  is  accelerating  force,  we 
may  now  go  on  to  consider  what  man  is,  whom  we  have  got 
somehow  to  try  to  adjust  to  it.  He  is  conscious,  beyond  question; 
and  he  has  paid  himself  the  compliment  of  describing  his  con 
sciousness  by  the  somewhat  hyperbolic  name  of  intelligence. 
We  may  grant,  indeed,  that  whether  he  can  really  understand 
anything  or  not,  he  will  always  suppose  that  he  can.  Intelligent, 
therefore,  we  will  call  him  for  our  momentary  purpose  of  defini 
tion.  Even  more  clearly,  he  is  at  once  the  product  of  certain 
natural  forces  —  such  as  ancestors  and  history  —  and  himself  a 
source  of  similar  natural  forces,  more  or  less  destined  to  affect 
other  people.  He  can  beget  children,  preach  sermons,  make 
works  of  art,  or  trouble,  or  mistakes.  In  other  words,  he  can 
somehow  accumulate  force  from  his  environment,  and  somehow 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  451 

radiate  it  thereto.  For  our  purposes,  I  believe,  we  may  best 
accordingly  consider  him  as  an  intelligent  focus  of  force. 

That  metaphorical  definition  has  the  baffling  fault  of  imma 
teriality;  unless  I  am  quite  mistaken,  a  focus  is  only  a  point, 
with  neither  length,  breadth,  nor  thickness  to  disturb  its  ethe 
real  purity.  To  think  any  further,  we  need  something  a  little 
more  substantial.  We  may  liken  man,  therefore,  not  to  a  focus 
pure  and  simple,  but  to  the  focal  instrument  most  familiar  to 
our  everyday  habits  of  mind  —  namely,  a  lens,  such  as  gathers, 
and  concentrates  or  disperses,  rays  of  light.  His  relation  to  the 
force  which  he  collects  and  radiates  is  something  like  that  of  an 
object-glass  or  of  a  burning-glass  to  the  phase  of  force  which  we 
now  figure  to  ourselves  in  the  guise  of  light-waves  or  heat-waves. 
The  most  important  error  in  our  simile  is  that  man,  as  we  con 
ceive  him,  differs  from  a  piece  of  glass  or  crystal  in  the  matter  of 
intelligence.  However  erroneous  our  notion  may  be  proved  by 
the  sympathetically  accelerated  intelligence  of  times  to  come, 
we  cannot  yet  habitually  imagine  the  lens  of  commerce  as  flexibly 
and  consciously  sensitive,  or  as  ever  troubled  with  desire  to  know 
what  it  is  about.  Man,  considered  as  a  focal  lens  of  force,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  so  troubled  all  the  time,  inevitably  and  rightly. 
Rightly,  I  say,  because  we  shall  hardly  disagree  that  if  his  intelli 
gence  languish,  he  will  neither  gather  nor  radiate  force  with  any 
but  accidental  effect,  and  yet  that  if  his  intelligence  grow  exces 
sive  it  will  somehow  cloiid  or  paralyze  his  focal  powers.  He  has 
never  yet  been  at  his  ideal  best;  doubtless  —  to  use  a  favorite 
phrase  of  old  Increase  Mather  —  he  never  will  be  until  the 
second  coming  of  Our  Lord.  He  is  nearest  his  ideal  best  when  his 
intelligence  and  his  focal  powers,  cumulative  and  radiatory  alike, 
are  most  nearly  balanced. 

To  illustrate  what  I  have  in  mind,  we  may  perhaps  turn  to  a 
few  examples  of  it.  Somewhere  in  the  work  of  John  Stuart  Mill, 
if  I  remember  rightly,  he  points  out  the  indisputable  truth  that, 
so  far  as  man  is  concerned  with  material  things,  human  activity 
may  be  reduced  to  the  power  of  taking  something  from  some 
where  and  putting  it  somewhere  else.  If,  with  this  principle  in 
mind,  we  turn  our  attention  to  a  fine  art,  such  as  cookery  or 
architecture,  we  shall  soon  come  to  agree  that  the  best  artists  — 
the  best  cooks  or  the  best  architects  —  are  those  who  best  know 


452  BARRETT  WENDELL 

what  to  take  and  where  to  put  it,  and  who  are  not  troubled  by 
hesitant  indecision  in  the  process.  Eggs  or  spices,  stone  or  wood 
or  metal,  lie  ready  at  hand;  so  do  fire  and  machines,  ovens  and 
engines  and  derricks.  ^Eons  of  experiment  have  proved  what  can 
be  done  with  them.  Here  are  a  few  of  the  countless  rays  of  force 
ready  for  concentration  in  the  little  human  focus  prepared  to 
gather  them.  Let  him  use  intelligence  enough  to  gather  them 
selectively,  and  half  his  work  is  done;  if,  meanwhile,  his  intelli 
gence  has  served  him  to  gather  among  them  rays  which  the  next 
man  would  have  neglected,  his  half-done  work  is  done  in  the 
manner  sometimes  called  original  and  sometimes  great. 

If  he  is  really  to  achieve  anything,  the  while,  let  alone  origi 
nality  or  greatness,  the  other  half  of  his  focal  task  must  be  per 
formed  as  well;  he  must  put  these  ingredients  or  materials, 
which  he  has  taken  from  somewhere,  in  the  precise  somewhere 
else  where  his  intelligence  leads  him  to  suppose  that  they  most 
happily  belong.  He  must  concentrate  or  radiate  them  into  his 
own  sauce,  or  his  own  cathedral.  If  he  do  this  right,  he  has  made 
them  a  new  centre  of  force  —  bodily  or  spiritual,  or  both.  Others 
than  he  will  eat  and  give  thanks,  or  kneel  in  adoration,  and 
otherwise  do  their  own  focal  work  the  better  for  his.  If  he  do  his 
work  amiss,  however,  the  sauce  will  be  unsavory,  the  cathedral 
unstable  or  ugly,  both  useless,  or  at  best  short  of  the  usefulness 
which  might  have  been  theirs.  In  such  regrettable  event,  when 
you  come  to  consider  why  things  have  gone  wrong,  you  will  gen 
erally  find  that  it  is  either  because  he  has  gathered  his  material 
stupidly,  or  has  used  it  stupidly,  or  has  stopped  to  think  how 
not  to  be  stupid  until  he  has  unwittingly  become  more  impotent 
than  if  he  had  not  stopped  to  think  at  all.  In  other  words,  his 
intelligence  and  his  focal  powers  have  got  out  of  balance. 

Or  take  a  more  subtle  instance,  or  at  least  a  more  complicated. 
Man,  we  all  know,  is  a  political  animal;  and  nowadays  he  is  here 
abouts  rather  disquietingly  active  in  this  aspect.  A  good  deal  of 
our  public  conduct  must  turn  on  majority  votes,  cast  for  im 
mensely  various  reasons,  of  self-interest,  of  patriotic  or  moral 
principle,  of  prejudice  or  invincible  ignorance,  of  carelessness  or 
of  what  presents  itself  to  the  voters  in  the  light  of  intelligence. 
As  American  citizens,  men  —  alone  or  collected  —  are  tremen 
dously  focal  centres  of  force.  On  what  they  think,  or  on  what 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  453 

they  think  that  they  think,  about  sundry  matters  must  depend 
what  they  do,  or  at  least  what  they  try  to  do,  about  them.  On 
what  they  really  do,  purposely  or  not,  must  considerably  depend 
our  national  welfare. 

At  this  moment,  for  example,  certain  general  questions  are  in 
the  air.  Without  venturing  even  to  suggest  answers,  I  shall  ask 
you  to  agree  that  we  shall  hardly  waste  the  little  time  demanded 
for  reminding  ourselves  of  the  kind  of  political  force  at  present 
environing  us.  Every  one  admits  nowadays,  as  a  general  prin 
ciple,  that  special  privilege  is  objectionable;  yet  protected  indus 
tries  are  honestly  demanding  what  seems  like  special  privilege 
to  many  of  our  citizens;  and,  with  equal  honesty,  labor  unions 
are  demanding  what  seems  equally  like  it  to  some  others.  Again, 
a  generally  admitted  principle  asserts  that  direct  taxation 
should  fall  proportionately  on  everybody,  so  that  everybody 
may  be  aware  of  just  what  degree  of  legal  imposition  he  is  called 
on  to  bear.  If  there  be  an  exception  to  this  principle,  it  is  that 
those  who  impose  a  direct  tax  should  be  willing  to  bear  at  least 
their  full  share  of  it;  otherwise  you  have  what  has  generally  been 
called  confiscation,  to  greater  or  less  degree.  Yet  not  only  pop 
ular  prejudice  but  the  utterances  of  eminent  statesmen  and  of 
far  from  radical  newspapers  are  vigorously  informing  us  that  a 
graduated  tax  on  inheritances  and  incomes  —  a  tax  which  com 
pletely  spares  the  majority,  who  are  poor,  and  despoils  the  mi 
nority,  who  are  rich  —  is  obviously  correct  in  principle. 

Still  again,  and  putting  aside  the  predatory  forces  thus  called 
to  mind,  there  is  room  for  great  difference  of  opinion  concerning 
the  proper  function  of  legislation.  To  some  it  appears  clear  that 
no  legislative  act  can  be  healthy,  and  probably  that  none  can 
really  be  operative,  which  contradicts  custom;  equally  respect 
able  thinkers  believe  heart  and  soul  in  imposing  righteousness 
on  humanity  by  legislation.  It  is  said  that  an  American  legisla 
ture  once  placed  the  Ten  Commandments  on  a  Statute  Book  by 
a  considerable  majority.  It  is  certain  that  prohibitory  legisla 
tion,  theoretically  contrary  to  the  rights  of  the  individual,  and 
practically  neglectful  of  the  regular  conduct  of  civilized  mankind, 
commands  wide  approval,  even  if  mitigated  by  narrow  sympathy. 
The  function  of  our  courts  is  equally  unsettled  in  the  public 
mind.  Some  highly  desirable  citizens  hold  that  the  business  of 


454  BARRETT  WENDELL 

judges  is  to  define  and  to  maintain  the  law;  others,  of  stainless 
patriotism,  urge  that  if  the  law  chance  to  be  unpopular,  or  other 
wise  unacceptable,  a  judge  who  should  maintain  it  probably 
deserves  impeachment,  and  certainly  ought  to  be  defeated  in 
case  he  hold  his  seat  by  popular  vote  and  present  himself  for 
reelection.  How  these  questions,  and  the  numberless  more 
which  they  may  suggest,  should  be  answered,  we  need  not  dis 
pute.  We  shall  agree,  I  hope,  that  man  can  answer  them  best 
when  he  can  best  perceive  on  the  one  hand  what  they  mean,  and 
on  the  other  what  consequences  his  answer  will  involve.  In  other 
words,  political  man,  like  man  the  artist  —  cook  or  architect  — 
is  at  his  best  when  his  intelligence  and  his  focal  powers  are  most 
nearly  balanced. 

Now  such  balance  is  evidence  of  the  nearest  possible  adjust 
ment  of  man  to  his  environment  —  of  our  focal  lens  of  force  to 
the  force  amid  which  it  lives  out  its  little  span  of  life ;  and  to  help 
toward  some  such  adjustment  is  one  chief  function,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  of  this  perplexing  mystery  of  ours  —  the  mystery 
of  education,  which  we  profess,  and  cherish,  and  revere.  So  far 
as  we  profess  it,  we  must  begin  to  feel,  our  work  in  this  world 
has  an  aspect  full  of  stimulus  both  imaginative  and  moral,  which 
a  good  many  of  us  —  focally  blind,  if  you  will  —  are  accustomed 
nowadays  to  neglect  or  to  ignore.  It  cannot  help  affecting  man 
—  artist,  political  animal,  and  countless  things  else.  It  cannot 
help  either  stimulating  or  impairing  his  power  of  adjustment  to 
his  environment.  We  sometimes  speak  of  the  humanities  as  if 
they  were  a  separate  and  almost  negligible  part  of  such  work  as 
is  ours  in  this  world.  Technically,  I  will  cheerfully  grant  you, 
they  are;  but  only  because  we  have  confined  the  name  to  limits 
far  more  narrow  than  its  meaning.  Plays  with  words  may  ob 
scure  truth  or  conceal  it;  they  can  never  avert  it.  Whether  we 
will  or  not,  the  true  office  of  education,  from  beginning  to  end, 
is  irresistibly,  tremendously,  magnificently  human. 

When  I  touched  on  this  point  a  little  while  ago,  you  may 
remember,  I  mentioned  an  opinion  here  and  there  held  by  serious 
observers  to  the  effect  that  educational  processes  are,  neverthe 
less,  at  this  moment  remarkably  indefinite  in  purpose  and  in 
effectual  in  result.  If  there  be  reason  for  this  —  and  I  fear  that 
few  of  us  can  feel  complacently  certain  of  the  contrary  —  it 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  455 

should  seem  sadly  to  follow  that  we  who  are  engaged  in  the  con 
duct  of  education  nowadays  leave  something  to  be  desired  in 
point  of  professional  efficiency.  Take,  for  example,  the  condition 
in  which  we  find  the  study  of  languages,  ancient  and  modern  — 
Greek  or  Latin,  French  or  German  or  English.  A  student  who 
can  currently  read  a  foreign  language,  after  a  good  many  years  of 
nominal  devotion  to  it  at  school  and  at  college,  is  as  remarkable 
as  a  black  swan  or  a  white  crow;  a  student  who  emerges  from  a 
course  of  earnest  instruction  in  English  composition  with  per 
ceptibly,  or  at  least  with  incontestably,  firmer  command  of  his 
pen  for  general  purposes  than  he  had  to  begin  with,  has  hardly 
yet  had  the  benevolence  to  cross  my  path.  Something  analogous 
is  true  of  work  in  literature,  in  history,  in  philosophy;  it  seems 
more  or  less  true  wherever  my  observation  has  extended.  The 
most  comforting  comment  on  it  takes  the  form  of  assurance  that, 
inasmuch  as  ideals  would  no  longer  be  ideals  if  they  were  attain 
able,  an  idealist  so  fatuous  as  to  look  for  anything  like  ideal 
results  is  doomed  to  disappointment. 

Refreshed  by  this,  one  is  presently  confronted  with  another 
fact,  less  debatable.  It  is  from  these  very  students  that  our  own 
colleges,  other  colleges,  schools  everywhere,  the  country  in  gen 
eral  yearly  select  the  teachers  charged  with  the  task  of  instruct 
ing  younger  human  beings  in  subjects  so  far  from  mastered  by 
themselves.  If  the  consequent  predicament  were  local,  all  we 
should  need  anywhere  would  be  to  ascertain  where  what  we  try 
to  do  is  done  better  than  we  do  it,  and  to  correct  our  errors 
accordingly.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  however,  search  for  such 
light  has  hardly  led  us  beyond  regions  of  darkness  indistinguish 
able  from  our  own;  this  seems  as  extensive  as  the  North  Ameri 
can  Continent,  if  not,  indeed,  as  the  modern  world.  One  sadly 
recalls  the  story  of  the  student  who  made  pilgrimage  to  a  cele 
brated  institution  of  learning,  for  the  purpose  of  sitting  at  some 
body's  feet,  and  complained  that,  alas,  he  could  find  no  feet  to 
sit  at.  Humble  in  spirit  though  we  may  be,  it  is  not  granted  us 
to  perceive  others  demonstrably  much  better  than  ourselves. 
So  there  we  are.  We  all  do  our  best;  we  all  know  that  those  who 
study  under  us  may  be  trusted  to  do  theirs,  at  least  when  charged 
with  responsibility.  The  trouble  is  not  moral.  Yet  we  ourselves, 
on  the  whole,  teach  ill;  and  those  whom  we  teach,  ill-taught, 


456  BARRETT  WENDELL 

teach  in  turn  rather  more  ill  still;  and  those  whom  they  have 
taught  surge  up  to  us  year  by  year,  to  be  taught  on,  less  and  less 
ready  to  understand  what  little  teaching  we  have  begun  to  learn 
how  to  give  them. 

There  is  trouble  here,  at  first  baffling.  As  focusses  of  force,  we 
all  begin  to  seem  despairingly  out  of  adjustment.  Unless  our  line 
of  reasoning  has  been  all  wrong,  however,  we  may  presently  con 
clude  that  when  any  of  us  is  out  of  adjustment  it  must  be  for 
one  of  three  reasons :  either  intelligence,  or  cumulative  power, 
or  radiatory  power  is  disproportionate  —  excessive  or  defec 
tive,  as  the  case  may  be.  The  immediately  consequent  con 
sideration  to  which  I  shall  invite  your  attention  may,  perhaps, 
have  its  allurements;  for  it  is  evidently  an  intelligent  though 
cursory  scrutiny  of  a  matter  dear  to  us  all  —  namely,  the  con 
dition  of  our  own  intelligence,  so  far  as  we  are  teachers  or 
scholars. 

One  thing  seems  instantly  clear.  At  this  moment  our  intelli 
gence  is  alive  and  wide-awake.  Yet  a  very  little  retrospect  will 
probably  convince  us  that  it  has  waked  up  pretty  lately.  In 
old  times,  as  the  times  of  our  youth  have  acceleratingly  become, 
the  purpose  of  teaching  was  chiefly  disciplinary,  and  the  method 
authoritative.  I  remember,  for  example,  the  anecdote  of  a 
schoolmaster  in  an  old  New  England  seaport,  who  was  trying 
to  teach  a  stubborn  boy  the  elements  of  navigation.  He  made 
some  statement  about  logarithms,  and  the  boy  inquired  how  he 
knew  it  was  so.  The  teacher  pulled  a  knife  out  of  his  pocket: 
"What's  that?"  he  asked.  —  "A  pen-knife,'*  said  the  boy. — 
"How  do  you  know?"  asked  the  teacher.  —  "I  don't  know  how 
I  know,"  answered  the  boy,  "but  I  know  I  know."  —  "Very 
well,"  said  the  teacher,  "that  is  the  way  I  know  logarithms"; 
and  thereupon  he  proceeded  with  the  lesson  —  this  part  of 
which  the  boy  never  forgot.  The  principles  and  methods  thus 
exemplified  had  one  great  merit :  they  remarkably  developed  and 
strengthened  in  pupils  the  power  of  concentrating  attention,  by 
sheer  force  of  will,  on  uninteresting  matters.  Apart  from  this, 
they  had  no  obvious  effect  on  what  intelligence  the  pupils  may 
have  possessed.  We  have  bravely  changed  all  that.  One  reason 
why  our  intelligence  is  so  wide-awake  nowadays  may  perhaps 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  intelligence  of  our  predecessors  was 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  457 

almost  asleep.  So  long  as  force  is  force  and  life  is  life,  the  story 
of  both  will  be  one  of  action  and  reaction. 

Now  our  scientific  friends,  I  believe,  tell  us  that  reaction  and 
action  are  ultimately  equal.  Those  of  us  who  are  not  initiated 
into  the  mysteries  of  science  are  accordingly  driven  toward  the 
conclusion  that  if  the  one  gets  us  nowhere,  the  other  will  get  us 
nowhere  else.  Matters  might  be  worse.  The  old  teaching  had 
its  merits,  after  all;  though  it  was  not  very  intelligent,  and 
though  its  focal  selection  of  force  was  extremely  limited,  it  man 
aged  to  radiate  with  considerable  exactitude  and  with  some 
approach  to  intensity.  It  did  not  know  what  it  was  about;  but 
it  came  fairly  near  accomplishing  its  blind  and  traditional  pur 
pose.  The  chief  trouble  lay  in  the  fact  that  blind  tradition  can 
hardly  lead  to  such  variation  as  is  nowadays  adored  under  the 
name  of  progress.  When  intelligence  began  to  wake  up,  the  air 
seemed  thrilling  with  promise.  We  would  ask  ourselves  what  we 
were  about;  we  would  get  rid  of  outworn  obstacles;  we  would 
direct  all  our  energies  straight  to  the  point,  as  soon  as  the  point 
was  found;  and  such  beings  as  should  result  from  these  millen 
nial  new  adjustments  would  evince  the  infinite  perfectibility  of 
human  nature.  So  we  went  to  work,  and  so  we  are  at  work  still. 
We  know  what  we  are  about  far  more  nearly  than  people  knew  a 
century  ago.  We  have  got  rid  of  many  obstacles  without  always 
making  sure  that  they  were  needless;  we  have  attempted,  for 
example,  to  cure  the  reluctance  of  pupils  by  allowing  them  — 
from  kindergarten  to  elective  courses  at  college  —  the  luxury  of 
the  slightest  possible  strain  on  unwilling  attention.  Yet  we  have 
not  incontestably  improved  the  pupils,  nor  yet  so  certainly 
ascertained  just  where  to  direct  our  energies  as  to  direct  them 
anywhere  with  quite  the  intensity  of  our  rule-of -thumb  predeces 
sors.  Earth,  in  fact,  is  no  nearer  heaven  than  it  used  to  be.  At 
times,  indeed,  some  of  us,  still  resolved  to  get  there  or  to  know 
the  reason  why,  grow  sensible  of  doubt  whether  the  time  is  not 
at  hand  when  we  may  best  sit  down,  with  good  cigars,  and  think 
out  the  reason  why. 

Thus  ruminating,  we  should  probably  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  one  reason  why  is  that  we  have  been  trying  too  hard  to 
understand  what  we  are  about.  We  all  know  the  sermons  which 
have  been  preached  from  the  text  of  Hamlet.  We  all  know,  as 


458  BARRETT  WENDELL 

well,  that  academies  have  never  yet  produced  great  works  of 
art;  and  some  of  our  friends  assure  us  that  what  we  cherish  as 
our  intelligence  shrinks  to  nothing  beside  that  of  certain  Ori 
ental  sages  devoted  to  life-long  contemplation  of  their  own 
navels.  One  might  go  on,  world  without  end.  The  sum  and  sub 
stance  of  it  all  would  be  that  some  inkling  of  why  the  teachers 
of  to-day  are  inefficient,  or,  in  other  words,  ill-adjusted  to  their 
environment,  may  perhaps  be  found  in  a  reactionary  awakening 
of  intelligence  to  a  degree  where  it  begins  to  be  inhibitory. 

Now  our  previous  considerations  should  assure  us  at  this  point 
of  something  comfortably  near  a  fact.  So  far  as  intelligence  can 
be  inhibitory  in  its  effect  on  man,  as  a  focus  of  force  —  and 
therefore  so  far  as  it  can  interfere  with  him  as  an  agent  or  a  sub 
ject  of  education  —  it  must  do  so  by  interfering  either  with  his 
focal  power  of  gathering  force  or  with  his  equally  focal  power  of 
radiating  it. 

Our  question  thus  becomes  more  definite;  and  the  moment  we 
inquire,  in  the  first  place,  if,  how,  and  when  intelligence  has  come 
to  meddle  with  the  cumulative  powers  of  our  little  human  lenses, 
we  can  begin  to  discern  an  obvious  answer.  In  the  good  old  times, 
we  have  agreed,  intelligence  was  torpid.  Awakened,  and  directed 
toward  the  state  of  education  at  the  period  of  its  awakening,  its 
honest  conviction,  quite  warranted  by  the  momentary  facts,  was 
that  education  had  become  stupidly  conventional.  People 
learned  things  by  heart,  all  the  way  from  the  alphabet  to  geom 
etry  and  the  Odes  of  Horace;  what  they  had  thus  learned  they 
repeated  to  others  who  tried  to  learn  from  them;  they  were  get 
ting  to  resemble  Mohammedan  scholars,  required  to  commit  to 
memory  the  Koran  and  all  the  orthodox  glosses  on  the  sacred 
text,  and  supposed  to  need  no  more  knowledge  this  side  of  Para 
dise.  The  consequent  counsel  of  intelligence  was  that  you  should 
try  to  understand  what  you  know  before  you  proceed  to  do  any 
thing  else  with  it. 

This  reaction  we  may  agree  to  have  been  healthy,  like  the 
awakening  of  intelligence  which  stimulated  it.  Very  clearly, 
there  was  chance  for  improvement.  We  must  set  ourselves  to 
work  selectively.  We  must  not  rest  content  with  accepting  and 
imparting  knowledge;  we  must  scrutinize  it,  and  acquire  it.  We 
must  test  what  comes  to  us,  proving  all  things,  and  holding  fast 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  459 

only  to  that  which  is  good.  Torpidity  had  lulled  our  cumulative 
powers  till  they  were  starving  for  want  of  use.  Here  was  the 
place  where  healthy  reaction  would  surely  bring  about  a  new 
adjustment,  better  for  the  whole  universe. 

That  the  reaction  has  done  a  great  deal  of  good  I  should  be  the 
last  to  deny.  We  can  hardly  imagine  nowadays  what  vast  fields 
of  inquiry,  familiar  and  remote,  still  lay  fallow  a  generation  or 
two  ago.  A  generation  or  two  ago  hardly  any  one  could  have 
imagined  how  few  to-day  would  remain  unbroken  by  plough  or 
even  harrow.  The  harvests  garnered  in  libraries  all  over  the 
world  are  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  scholars  whom  you  and  I 
can  remember;  and  these  treasures,  in  their  crude  form  generally 
to  be  described  as  theses,  are  true  treasures,  in  that  they  imply 
something  more  than  hard  and  conscientious  work;  they  could 
never  have  been  wrested  from  their  hidden  lairs  without  the 
inspiration  of  devoted  enthusiasm.  It  has  all  been  worth  while. 
So  we  press  on  still,  competitively  eager  to  gather  and  to  garner 
more  and  more.  But  some  of  us,  the  Lord  knows  why,  are  begin 
ning  to  wonder  whether,  on  the  whole,  we  have  not  gone  rather 
too  far.  No  one  could  pretend  that  intelligence  has  here  proved 
inhibitory  to  education  by  any  process  of  repression.  If  it  be 
true,  however,  that  intelligence  is  inhibitory  at  all,  here  is  a 
point  where  the  trouble  may  perhaps  partly  lie,  by  reason  of  an 
over-development  as  fatal  to  balance  as  atrophy  itself. 

We  have  strayed  long  enough  in  the  misty  regions  of  metaphor. 
It  is  time  to  consider  just  what  we  mean.  Nothing  can  remind 
us  more  distinctly  than  the  subjects  of  theses  to  which  candi 
dates  for  the  degree  of  doctor  of  philosophy,  or  the  like,  have 
consecrated  months  and  years  of  earnest  work.  Here  are  two  or 
three.  I  remember  at  Harvard,  not  many  years  ago,  one  in 
Latin,  certified  as  creditable  by  such  of  my  colleagues  as  can 
currently  read  that  learned  language,  on  the  methods  of  hair- 
dressing  practised  in  imperial  Rome.  I  have  been  informed,  by 
the  way,  if  I  remember  rightly,  that  the  scholar  who  wrote  it 
was  not  exceptional  for  personal  tidiness.  I  remember  another 
entitled  "De  ea  quaos  dicitur  attractione  in  enuntiationibus  relativis 
apud  scriptores  Grcecos"  —  which  means,  I  believe,  "Concerning 
what  is  called  attraction  in  relative  constructions  used  by  Greek 
authors."  A  third  concerned  the  tenure  of  land  in  the  dominions 


460  BARRETT  WENDELL 

of  Brandenburg  under  the  sovereignty  of  the  Groat  Elector;  the 
writer  of  this  is  said  by  one  of  his  examiners  to  have  displayed 
boundless  ignorance  of  shipping  laws  and  tariffs  in  English- 
speaking  regions;  but  he  was  so  unique  an  authority  on  Branden 
burg  real  estate  that  he  was  declared  proficient  in  economic  history. 

Any  one  familiar  with  modern  American  universities  must 
have  plenty  of  similar  memories.  Pretty  lately,  for  example,  my 
attention  as  a  student  of  literature  in  America  has  been  called 
to  a  printed  thesis  which  professed  to  make  some  contribution 
to  the  literary  history  of  Colonial  Pennsylvania,  and  to  another 
about  the  "Heralds  of  American  Literature."  The  latter  dealt 
with  works  written  in  America  between  the  Revolution  and  the 
year  1800.  This  stagnant  period  had  already  been  exhaustively 
treated  by  the  late  Professor  Tyler;  he  had  omitted,  however, 
to  emphasize  the  important  truth  that  certain  letters  of  Joel 
Barlow,  or  some  such  forgotten  worthy,  are  preserved  in  the 
Public  Library  of  Southport,  Connecticut. 

To  turn  to  foreign  fields,  there  is  no  degree  anywhere  more 
worthily  sustained  than  that  of  Doctor  of  Letters,  at  the  Uni 
versity  of  Paris.  Among  the  theses  presented  there  by  candidates 
in  Modern  Literature  a  generation  ago  was  the  admirable  work 
of  the  late  Professor  Beljame  on  "The  Public  and  Men  of  Letters 
in  England  during  the  Eighteenth  Century."  Whoever  has  had 
the  pleasure  of  reading  it  must  have  recognized  its  permanent 
value  in  defining  how  English  literature  passed  from  the  stage 
of  dependence  on  patronage  to  that  of  self-support,  derived  from 
willing  readers  who  stood  ready  to  purchase.  The  book  throws 
new  floods  of  light  into  the  toiling  garrets  of  Grub  Street.  The 
very  fact,  however,  that  a  brilliant  French  student  should  have 
turned  his  attention  to  so  limited  a  field  of  English  literature 
implies  that  the  field  of  French  literature  was  approaching  ex 
haustion.  The  subjects  of  some  later  theses  produced  in  France 
imply  the  same  fact  there  concerning  the  literary  history  of 
England.  Here  are  a  few  of  them:  "The  Youth  of  Wordsworth," 
"Robert  Burns,"  "George  Crabbe,"  "John  Thelwall,"  "Edgar 
Allan  Poe,"  "Nathaniel  Hawthorne,"  "Ralph  Waldo  Emerson," 
"Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,"  and  "William  James."  I  have  reason 
to  believe,  indeed,  that  a  serious  French  candidate  has  lately 
considered  a  project  of  presenting  for  the  Doctorate  of  Letters 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  461 

at  the  Sorbonne  a  punctilious  study  of  the  work  of  Mr.  William 
Dean  Howells. 

By  this  time  the  conclusion  toward  which  our  course  of 
specification  has  tended  must  loom  clear.  The  healthy  reaction 
ary  impulse  of  intelligence  toward  investigation  has  got  to  a 
point  where  a  rapidly  increasing  amount  of  investigating  energy 
must  be  devoted  to  inquiring  what  there  is  left  to  investigate. 
One  can  imagine,  indeed,  an  approaching  future  when  the  mere 
discovery  of  some  uninvestigated  corner  of  any  field  of  study 
imaginable  shall  be  hailed  with  tumultuous  learned  ovation  all 
over  the  world  as  abundant  and  overflowing  evidence  of  such 
power  as  should  command  the  highest  possible  degree,  from  the 
most  rigorous  of  academic  tribunals.  When  this  rapturous 
vision  begins  to  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day,  any  of  us 
who  may  have  yielded  ourselves  to  its  allurements  must  awaken 
to  its  chief  meaning  for  us  here  and  now.  If  we  momentarily 
agree  to  consider  your  teacher  or  your  scholar  as  if  he  were  a 
man,  and  therefore  an  intelligent  focus  of  force,  and  if  we  ad 
mit  that  he  is  at  present  inefficient  for  want  of  adjustment  to 
his  environment,  we  can  hardly  avoid  perceiving  that  one  rea 
son  why  may  be  found  in  an  inhibitory  excess  of  intelligence 
which  has  resulted  in  over-stimulated  exhaustion  of  his  focal 
power  of  accumulation. 

To  put  the  case  more  simply,  we  are  all  at  our  best  —  men  or 
teachers  or  scholars  —  when  we  know,  with  the  least  hesitation, 
what  we  possess,  and  what  we  want,  and  what  to  do  with  both 
If  we  devote  ourselves  too  strenuously  to  hunting  for  what  we 
want,  we  run  the  risk  of  forgetting  what  we  have,  of  not  know 
ing  why  we  want  what  we  want,  and  of  losing  all  conception  of 
what  on  earth  we  shall  do  with  anything,  whether  already  in  our 
possession  or  by  and  by  to  be  got  there  from  somewhere  else. 
That  string  of  words  has  a  thread  of  meaning,  to  hold  it  together; 
and  nothing  short  of  what  sounds  preposterous  could  have 
brought  us  without  shock  to  a  recent  incident  in  my  professional 
life.  Preposterous  or  not,  it  will  serve  our  next  and  almost  our 
last  purpose;  this  is  evidently  to  consider  what  sort  of  radiance 
we  teachers  nowadays  diffuse  among  the  students  at  our  feet. 

In  one  of  my  classes  there  was  a  youth  of  deserving  aspect, 
who  did  me  the  honor  to  follow  my  lectures  attentively.  So  I 


462  BARRETT  WENDELL 

felt  duly  grateful;  and  when  he  asked  whether  he  might  consult 
me  about  his  plans  in  life,  I  was  more  than  glad  to  put  my  wis 
dom  at  his  service.  Within  a  few  weeks,  it  presently  transpired, 
he  had  come  for  the  first  time  into  possession  of  an  encyclopaedia. 
The  joys  of  ownership  had  impelled  him  to  plunge  deep  into  the 
volumes.  He  had  thereupon  perceived,  with  genial  precision, 
one  thing  which  was  the  matter  with  learning,  as  previously 
imparted  to  him.  It  had  been  presented  only  in  fragments;  as 
he  put  the  case,  everything  had  been  awfully  specialized.  That 
his  encyclopaedia  was  composed  by  specialists  he  cheerfully 
conceded;  that  its  contents  were  even  more  fragmentary  than 
his  college  courses  he  was  equally  ready  to  admit.  He  urged, 
however,  that  there  was  a  good  deal  more  in  the  encyclopaedia 
than  the  best  specialist  of  them  all  could  ever  pretend  to  know. 
This  granted,  he  went  on,  with  divinely  synthetic  impulse,  to 
opine  that,  if  you  could  put  this  material  completely  together, 
you  would  know  everything.  Within  the  present  limits  of  human 
knowledge,  I  agreed,  some  such  statement  of  ideal  omniscience 
might  be  accepted.  Then  came  his  memorably  explosive  burst 
of  imagination.  Like  all  good  men,  he  was  humble  in  spirit,  yet 
desirous  of  doing  good.  The  good  he  most  wished  to  do  was  to 
preserve  others  from  the  intoxicating  enticements  of  specializa 
tion.  Could  he  do  this  better,  he  asked,  than  by  consecrating 
his  life  to  the  task  of  instruction  at  some  fresh-water  college, 
where,  with  the  sole  aid  of  his  encyclopaedia,  he  might  hope  in 
due  time  to  become  the  titular  "Professor  of  Everything'*? 

Comment  on  this  incident  seems  needless.  I  have  tried  to 
recount  it  literally,  nothing  extenuating  nor  aught  setting  down 
in  malice.  It  left  me  certainly  a  sadder  man,  and  perhaps  a 
wiser.  That  boy,  no  doubt,  talked  like  a  fool;  but,  when  he  went 
away,  there  seemed  to  me  something  else  than  folly  in  the  mem 
ory  of  him.  He  had  dimly  perceived,  and  in  his  own  stammering 
way  he  had  fearlessly  tried  to  express,  a  truth  pregnant  for  you 
and  me.  For  if  you  and  I,  as  teachers  or  scholars,  as  priests  or 
initiates  of  the  mystery  of  education,  threatened  on  all  sides  by 
unmeaningly  impious  dissipation  of  our  mystery,  and  bewildered 
by  the  accelerating  rush  of  environment  all  about  us,  are  to  give 
due  account  of  ourselves  to  the  future,  we  must  bestir  ourselves 
to  be  dynamic. 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  463 

To  be  dynamic  as  teachers,  and  thus,  so  far  as  we  can,  to  make 
dynamic  in  turn  those  who  come  within  our  influence,  is  the 
earthly  duty  of  our  profession.  Again,  you  may  well  feel,  I  am 
losing  myself  in  fine,  big  words.  Even  so,  there  is  comfort  for  us 
all  looming  in  sight.  These  vagaries  have  already  strayed  so 
long  that  they  cannot  stray  much  longer.  They  may  leave  us 
nowhere,  to  be  sure;  if  they  do,  they  will  have  done  at  worst  only 
what  education  now  does  to  most  of  its  patients;  and  few  of  us 
yet  are  ready  to  declare  in  consequence  that  education  is  not 
worth  while.  Indeed,  I  remember  few  more  inspiring  eulogies 
than  that  which  a  professor  of  my  acquaintance  once  privately 
pronounced  on  a  newly  departed  colleague.  The  career  just 
gently  closed,  he  declared,  had  been  among  the  most  memorably 
useful  in  the  whole  history  of  the  field  of  learning  which  it  had 
striven  to  cultivate.  By  faithful  adherence  to  wrong  methods, 
in  pursuit  of  wrong  ends,  it  had  conclusively  demonstrated  what 
ought  not  to  be  done.  Next  to  triumphant  success,  my  friend 
declared,  this  is,  perhaps,  the  highest  achievement  within  the 
range  of  human  endeavor.  All  the  same,  most  of  us  are  ambitious 
enough  to  cling  to  the  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds,  and  not  to 
rest  content  with  the  prospect  of  a  usefulness  based  on  the  fact 
that  we  shall  unintentionally  have  been  useless.  So  far  as  we 
desire  to  know  what  we  shall  do  to  be  saved,  accordingly,  we 
must  still  inquire,  though  never  so  hastily,  what  we  mean  by 
dynamic,  as  we  have  just  used  that  impressive  word. 

Intelligent,  living  lenses,  we  have  agreed  to  imagine  ourselves, 
focally  collecting  and  radiating  certain  streams  of  the  constantly 
accelerating  force  which  surges  about  us,  no  one  knows  whence 
or  whither;  and  our  function,  so  far  as  we  are  teachers,  and 
priests  or  initiates  of  the  mystery  of  education,  is  to  mould  other 
lenses  at  once  so  firmly  and  so  flexibly  that  they  shall  do  their 
own  work  better,  So,  on  and  on,  to  furthest  time.  All  this  work, 
whether  ours  or  theirs,  is  done  best  when  intelligence  best 
selects,  best  combines,  and  best  radiates  —  itself  nobly  submis 
sive  to  the  quiveringly  balanced  conditions  of  its  task.  Thus  we 
have  generalized.  All  that  we  can  now  do  more  is  to  attempt,  if 
only  for  an  instant,  to  translate  our  generalization  into  some 
thing  like  specific  terms. 

In  choosing  those  nearest  my  own  experience,  I  do  only  what 


464  BARRETT  WENDELL 

I  should  eagerly  expect  any  one  else  to  do  under  similar  circum 
stances.  For  a  good  many  years  I  have  been  mostly  a  teacher  of 
literature,  whose  business  has  been,  so  far  as  in  me  lay,  to  under 
stand  it,  and  to  impart  understanding  of  it  to  others.  Among 
those  others,  year  by  year,  there  have  always  been  a  few  who 
desired  to  become  teachers  of  literature  themselves;  as  a  rule, 
these  men  have  decided  to  prepare  themselves  for  their  life  work 
by  winning  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy.  Over  and  over 
again  we  have  accordingly  found  ourselves  deep  in  discussion  of 
how  such  students  should  concern  themselves  with  literature. 
If  we  had  all  agreed  about  anything,  we  should  not  have  been 
human.  Unless  I  am  wholly  mistaken,  the  while,  hardly  any  of 
us  would  deny  that  literature  is  among  the  enduring  expressions 
of  history;  that  among  other  expressions  of  history,  equally  sig 
nificant  and  memorable,  are  the  other  fine  arts  and  philosophy; 
and,  to  go  no  further,  that  the  vehicle  of  literature  is  language. 
Here,  instantly,  are  other  rays  or  streams  of  the  force  surging 
about  us,  not  to  be  disdained  or  neglected  by  those  whose  chief 
duty  is  concerned  with  the  vibrant  rays  of  literature  alone. 
There  was  never  work  of  literature,  from  the  Homeric  poems  to 
the  yellow  journalism  of  these  United  States  of  America,  not  the 
better  to  be  understood  for  understanding  of  the  words  put 
together  in  its  making,  of  the  historical  and  social  conditions 
collected  at  the  moment  of  its  utterance,  or  of  what  men  were 
painting  and  building  and  moulding  and  singing  and  dreaming 
in  the  world  about  it.  No  doubt,  all  this  is  already  far  too  much 
for  any  man  of  letters  to  gather  firmly  in  any  conscious  focus. 
None  the  less,  if  he  forget  the  existence  of  a  single  ray  of  it,  he 
forgets  at  his  peril.  The  most  frequent  phase  of  such  disaster 
used  to  be  the  pedantry  of  the  grammarians;  at  present  it  is 
pressed  hard  by  the  gossipy  minuteness  of  the  antiquarians. 
Our  higher  duty  is  not  to  neglect,  but  to  select,  and  to  reject  — 
that  is,  so  far  as  our  focal  business  is  cumulative.  Then,  within 
our  inmost  selves,  must  come  the  flash  which  can  synthesize  into 
new  combination  the  rays  of  force,  from  near  and  far,  most 
needful  for  our  radiant  purpose.  Finally  must  come  expression 
—  in  no  wise  an  end  in  itself,  nor  an  idol  to  be  worshipped  for 
intrinsic  monstrosity  or  grace,  but  an  inevitable  condition  of 
imparting  our  synthesis  to  other  minds  than  our  own.  We  are 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  EDUCATION  465 

at  our  best  when  we  select  best,  when  we  best  fuse  anew  the 
vagrant  rays  which  we  have  selected,  and  when  our  expression 
flows  forth  with  the  clear  white  heat  of  fresh  and  living  fusion. 

So,  at  least,  it  has  come  to  seem  to  me,  after  thirty  years  of 
plodding  work,  none  too  fruitful.  There  is  left  us  only  the  ques 
tion  of  how  we  should  apply  all  this  to  the  patients  in  our  charge, 
suffering  until  we  can  turn  them  adrift  with  what  hope  of  sur 
vival  may  inhere  in  the  mystic  letters  Ph.D.  The  answer  is 
short  and,  for  a  wonder,  simple.  Doctors  of  philosophy  must 
earn  their  degrees  chiefly  by  writing  theses.  So  far  as  these  theses 
can  stimulate  at  once  intelligent  power  of  selection,  of  fusion, 
and  of  expression,  they  are  priceless  means  of  education.  So  far 
as  they  either  exaggerate  or  repress  intelligence,  or  selective 
power,  or  power  of  fusion,  or  expression  itself,  they  may  begin 
to  do  more  harm  than  good;  and  harm,  like  good,  and  everything 
else,  is  infinite  in  its  possibilities.  Concerning  the  present  condi 
tion  of  such  theses  I  will  not  further  inquire.  What  the  future 
condition  of  them  might  conceivably  be  we  will  leave  to  the 
dreamers. 

Whereof  you  will  more  than  probably  have  found  me  one. 
Imperfectly  focal,  I  fear,  and  dimly  radiant  this  effort  of  mine 
to  set  forth  opinion  must  seem.  All  I  can  urge  in  excuse  for 
having  made  such  demand  on  your  attention  is  the  tremendous 
truth  that  this  mystery  of  ours  —  the  mystery  of  education  — 
still  retains  the  marvellous  power  of  commanding  enthusiastic 
national  faith.  To  any  of  us  who  have  come  to  feel  this,  and 
therewith  the  gravity  of  our  responsibility,  no  earnest  effort  to 
confront  it  can  seem  a  waste  of  time.  So  if  any  of  you  have  found 
food  for  thought  in  my  belief  that  our  real  task  is  the  fashioning 
of  living  lenses  which  shall  intelligently  accumulate  and  radiate 
streams  of  the  accelerating  force  in  which  we  are  all  surging 
toward  we  know  not  what,  our  hour  together  is  justified.  For  it 
will  have  done  its  own  little  part  to  encourage  our  mystery 
toward  the  high  hope  that  in  the  years  to  come  education  may 
help  make  human  forces  not  explosive  but  constructive. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING 

BY   WOODROW   WILSON 

Delivered  before  the  Alpha  of  Massachusetts,  at  Harvard  University,  July  1, 
1909.  Reprinted  by  the  permission  of  President  Wilson  and  of  The  Harvard 
Graduates'  Magazine. 

WE  have  fallen  of  late  into  a  deep  discontent  with  the  college, 
with  the  life  and  the  work  of  the  undergraduates  in  our  univer 
sities.  It  is  an  honorable  discontent,  bred  in  us  by  devotion,  not 
by  captiousness  or  hostility  or  by  an  unreasonable  impatience  to 
set  the  world  right.  We  are  not  critics,  but  anxious  and  thought 
ful  friends.  We^a.rq  neither  oynios  nor  pessimigtSxJait  honest 
lovers  of  a  good  thing,  of  whose  slightest  deterioration  we  are 
jealous.  We  would  fain  keep  one  of  thefinest  instrumentalities 
'  ~bf  our  national  life  from  falling  short  of  its  best,  and  believe  that 
by  a  little  care  and  candor  we  can  do  so. 

The  American  college  has  played  a  unique  part  in  American 
life.  So  long  as  its  aims  wrere  definite  and  its  processes  authorita 
tive  it  formed  men  who  brought  to  their  tasks  an  incomparable 
morale,  a  capacity  that  seemed  more  than  individual,  a  ] 
touched  with  large  ideals.  The  college  has  been  thejeat  of  ideal 
The  liberal  training  which  it  sought  to  impart  took  no  thought 
of  any  particular  profession  or  business,  but  was  meant  to  reflect 
in  its  few  and  simple  disciplines  the  image  of  life  and  thought. 
Men  were  bred  by  it  to  no  skill  or  craft  or  calling;  the  discipline 
to  which  they  were  subjected  had  a  more  general  object.  It  was 
meant  to  prepare  them  for  the  whole  of  life  rather  than  for  some 
particular  part  of  it.  The  ideals  whichjay  at  its  heart  were  the 
general  ideals  of  conduct,  of  right  living,  and  right  thinking, 
which  made  them  aware  of  a  world  moralized  by  principle, 
steadied  and  cleared  of  many  an  evil  thing  by  true  and  catholic 
reflection  and  just  feeling,  a  world,  not  of  interests,  but  of  ideas. 

Such  impressions,  such  challenges  to  a  man's  spirit,  such  inti 
mations  of  privilege  and  duty  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  work 
and  obligations  of  professional  and  technical  schools.  They  can 
not  be.  Every  calling  has  its  ethics,  indeed,  its  standards  of  right 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING 


467 


conduct  and  wrong,  its  outlook  upon  action  and  upon  the  varied 
relationships  of  society.  Its  work  is  high  and  honorable, 
grounded,  it  may  be,  in  the  exact  knowledge  which  moralizes 
the  processes  of  thought,  and  in  a  skill  which  makes  the  whole 
man  serviceable.  But  it  is  notorious  how  deep  and  how  narrow 
the  absorptions  of  the  professional  school  are  and  how  much 
they  are  necessarily  concentrated  upon  the  methods  and  in 
terests  of  a  particular  occupation.  The  work  to  be  done  in  them 
is  as  exact,  as  definite,  as  exclusive  as  that  of  the  office  -and  the 
shop.  Their  atmosphere  is  the  atmosphere  of  business,  and 
should  be.  It^.doesnotbeget  generous  comradeships  or  any  ar 
dor  of  altruistic  feeling  such^as  the  college  begets.  It  does  not 
contain  that  general  air  of  the  world  of  science  and  ofTetters  in 
which  the  mind  seeks  no  special  interes$,  but  feels  every  intimate 
impulse  of  the  spirit  set  free  to  think  and  observe  and  listen, 
—  listen  to  all  the  voices  of  the  mind.  The  professional  scKool 
differs  from  the  college  gs  middle  age  difrers  from  youth*  It; 
gets  the  spiritToT  the  college  only  by  imitation  or  reminiscence 
or  contagion.  This  is  to  say  nothing  to  itsoiscredit.  Its  nature 
and  objects  are  different  from  those  of  the  college,  —  as  legiti 
mate,  as  useful,  as  necessary;  but  different.  The_collfi2e.ls  the* 


1  r  of  the  f*.nl]pgtt  is  tojiberalize  and  moraL 

object  of  the  ^fofessibnal  ^^  scjKooX-IQo--feffttB-yyf 
a  speciaKask.  "Afi3  this  is  true^faU  vocational  study. 

using  the  words  tihgfl.1i,gffi-ftini  mrtrni      in 


r&roadest  sigriificanceTand  I  am" very  well  aware  that  fam 
speaking  in  the  terms  of  a»  ideal,  a  conception,  rather  than  in 
the  terms  of  realized  facti^E  have  spoken,  too,  of  what  the 
lege  did  "so  long  as  its  aims  were  definite  and  its  processes 
authoritative,"  as  if  I  were  thinking  of  it  wholly  in  the  past  tense 
andwished  to  intimate  that  rtwas  once  a  very  effective  and  ideal 
thmgTut~EaoTnow  ceased  JxjLgxisti  so  that  one  wouloTl 


y, 
f 


that  I  thought  the  college  lost  out  of  our  life  and  the  present  a 
time  when  such  influences  were  all  to  seek.  But  that  is  only 
because  I  have  not  been  able  to  say  everything  at  once.  Give 
me  leave,  and  I  will  slowly  write  in  the  phrases  which  will  correct 
these  impressions  and  bring  a  fruepicture  to  light. 
The  college  has  lost  its  defmiteness  of  aim,  and  has  now  for  so 


WOODROW  WILSON 

ng  a  time  affected  to  be  too  modest  to  assert  its  authority  over 
its  pupils  in  any  matter  of  prescribed  study  that  it  can  no  longer 
^  claim  to  be  the  rutfturWr  ^pjj^*  ^  once  wasJ  but  tne  college  is 
neither  dead  nor  moribund,  and  it  has  made  up  for  its  relaxed 
discipline  and  confused  plans  of  study  by  many  notable  gains, 
which,  if  they  have  not  improved  its  scholarship,  have  improved 
the  health  and  the  practical  morals  of  the  young  gentlemen  who 
resort  to  it,  have  enhanced  their  vigor  and  quickened  their  whole 
freer  choice  of  studies  has  imparted  to  it  a  stir,  an  air 
reedom  and  individual  initiative,  a  wealth  and  variety  of 
instruction  which  the  old  college  altogether  lacked.  Th 
opment  of  athletic  sports  and  the  immoderate  addiction  of 
undergraduates  to  stimulating  activities  of  all  sorts,  academic 
and  unacademic,  which  improve  their  physical  habite,  fill  their 
lives  y/ith  interesting  objects,  sometimes  important]  and  chal 
lenge  their  powers  of  organization  and  practical  management, 
have  unquestionably  raised  the  tone  of  morals  and  of  conduct  in 
our  colleges. and  have  given  them  an  Interesting,  perhaps  valu- 
aKIerconnection  with/modern  society  and  the  broader  popular 
interests  of  the  day*  No  one  need  regret  the  breaking-up  of  the 
dead  levels  of  the  old  college,  the  introduction  and  exaltation  of 
modern  studies,  or  the  general  quickening  of  life  which  has  made 
of  our  youngsters  more  manly  fellows,  if  less  docile  pupils.  There 
had  come  to  be  something  rather  narrow  and  dull  and  morbid, 
no  doubt,  about  the  old  college  before  its  day  was  over.  If  we 
gain  our  advances  by  excessive  reactions  and  changes  whreh 
change  too  much,  we  at  least  gain  them,  and  should  be  careful' 
not  to  lose  the  advantage  of  them. 

Nevertheless,  the  evident  fact  is,  that  wej\ay<?  no^  for  a  lr>ng 

changes  which  have   ) 


(^disorganization,  andjtjs  our  plain 
and  immediate  duty  to  form  our  plans  f<  nization.  We 

«nusrfeexamine  the  coll  ge,  reconceive  it,  reorganize  it.  Tt  js  the 
rootofour  intellectual  life  as  a  nation.  It  Is  not  only  the  instru 
mentality  through  which  we  must  effect  all  the  broad  prelimi 
nary  work  which  underlies  sound  .scholarship;  it  is  also  our  chief 
instrumentality  of  catholic  enlightenment,  our  chief  means  for 

"  giving  widespread  stimulation  to  the  whole  intellectual  life  of  the 
country  and  supplying  ourselves  with  men  who  shall  both  com- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  469 

prehend  their  age  and   duty  and  know  how  to  serve  them 


supremely  well.  Without,  t.hp  An^n'ran  college  our  young  men 
would  be  too  exclusively  shut  in  to  the  pursuit  of  individual  inter 
ests^  would  lose  tne  vital  contacts  andemulations  which  awaken 
them  to  those  larger  achievements  and  sacrifices  which 
-  irighesrol^gcts~of^ducation  in  a  country  of  free  citizens,  /where 
the  welfare  of  tnejcpmmonwe5t£  springs  out^of  the  ^character  V 
"  purposes  of  the  private  citizen.  The  college 


will  be  found  to  lie  somewhere  very  near  the  heart  of  American 
social  training  and  intellectual  and  moral  enlightenment. 

The  process  is  familiar  to  every  one  by  which  the  disintegra 
tion  was  brought  about  which  destroyed  the  old  college  with  its 
fixed  disciplines  and  ordered  life  and  gave  us  our  present  pi-oblem 
of  reorganization  and  recovery.  It  centred  in  the  bieak-up  of 
the  old  curriculum  and  the  introduction  of  the  principle  that  the 
student  was  to  select  his  own  studies  from  ?„  great  variety  of 
courses,  as  great  a  variety  as  the  resources  of  the  college  and  the 
supply  of  teachers  available  made  possible.  But  the  change  could 
not  in  the  nature  of  things  stop  with  the  plan  of  study.,  It  held 
at  its  heart  a  tremendous  implication:  the  implication  of  full 
manhood  on  the  part  of  the  pupil,  and  all  the  untrammelled 
choices  of  manhood.  The  pupil  who  was  mature  and  well  in- 
"^formed  enough  to  stuav  what  he  cfiose  WPS  also  by 
^implication  matige_enQ 

to  rbriflftp  fris  rtwn  associations  and  ways  of  lifp 

riculum  without  restr  lint  or  suggestion;  and  the  varied,  absorb 
ing  college  life  of  our  day  sprang  up  as  the  natural  offspring  of  * 
the  free  election  of  studies. 

There  went  along  with  the  relaxation  of  rule  as  to  what  under 
graduates  should  study,  therefore,  an  almost  absolute  divorce 
between  the  studies  and  the  life  of  the  college,  its  business  and 
its  actual  daily  occupations.  The.  teacher.  .ceased  to  look  upon 
himself  as  related  in  any  responsible  way  to  the  life  of  his  pupils^ 
to  what  they  should  be  doing  and  thinking  of  between  one  class 
exercise  and  another,  and  conceived  his  whole  duty  to  have  been 
performed  when  he  had  given  his  lecture  and  afforded  those  who 
were  appointed  to  come  the  opportunity  to  hear  and  heed  it  if 
they  chose-  •  The  teachers  of  this  new  regime,  moreover,  were 
most  of  them  trained  for  their  teaching  work  hi  German 


470  WOODROW  WILSON 


si  ties,  or  uy  American)  universities  in  which  the, 

lfox-Qr*T'ti  nTlfl  **"»  r>Kjor»t  r>f  thft  £U»«ia£Ln^iinivATlF 

sities  were,  consciously^  or  unconsciously,  reproduced.  They 
thifilTof  their  pupils,  therefore,  as  men  already  disciplined  by 
some  general  +rn.ining{giipji  HQ  tJip^prnj^^gyninasium  gives? and 
seeking  in  the  university  special  acquaintance  with  particular 
studies,  as  an  introduction  to  special  fields  of  information  and 
inquiry.  They  have  never  thought  of  the  university  *"*  fl  ^nm. 
munitv^teacEers  and  pupils :  theyjjiink  of  it,  rather,  as  a-bpjiy 
teachers  and  investigatorsJo.ffliQmlk^^  seri^ 

L/ously  desire  specialized  kinds  of  knowledge.  They  are  specialists 
importedlnto  an  American  system  which  lias  lost  its  old  point  of 
view  and  found  no  new  one  suitable  to  the  needs  and  circum 
stances  of  America.  They  do  not  think  of  living  with  their  pupils 
and  affording  them  the  contacts  of  culture;  they  are  only  acces 
sible  to  them  at  stated  periods  and  for  a  definite  and  limited 
service;  and  their  teaching  is  an  interruption  to  their  favorite 
work  of  research. 

J  Meanwhile,  the  constituency  of  the  college  has  wholly  changed. 
It  is  not  only  the  bookish  classes  who  now  send  their  sons  to 
college,  but  also  the  men  of  business  and  of  affairs,  who  expect   • 
their  sons  to  follow  in  their  own  footsteps  and  do  work  with 
which  books  have  little  connection.  In  the  old  days  of  which  I 
have  spoken  most  young  men  who  went  to  college  expected  to 
enter  one  or  other  of  the  learned  professions,  expected  to  have  to 
do  with  books  and  some  of  the  more  serious  kinds  of  learning  all 
their  lives.   Books  were  their  proper  introduction  to  the  workv 
that  lay  before  them;  learning  was  their  natural  discipline  and  ! 
preparation.  But  nowadays  the  men  who  are  looking  forward  to  ' 
the  learned  professions  are  in  a  minority  at  the  college.  Most 

^undergraduates  come  out  of  an  atmosphere  of  business  and  wish 
a  breeding  which  is  consonant  with  it.  They  donoi  wish  learning/, 
They  wish  or.iy  a  certain  freshening  of  their  faculties  for  the 
miscellaneous  cos  a  general  acquaintance  with  what 

men  are  doing  and  saying  in  their  own  generation,  a  certain  facil 
ity  in  handling  themselves  and  in  getting  on  with  their  fellows. 
They  are  much  more  interested  in  the  incidental  associations  of 
college  life  than  in  the  main  intellectual  occupations  of  the  place. 
.They  want  to  be  made  men  of,  not  scholars;  and  the  life  led  at 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  471 

college  is  as  serviceable  for  that  as  any.  of  the  tasks  set  in  the 
class-room.  If  they  want  what  the  formal  teaching  offers  them 
at  all,  it  is  for  some  definite  and  practical  purpose  connected  with 
the  calling  they  expect  to  follow,  the  business  they  expect  to 
engage  in.  Such  pupils  are  specially  unsuitable  for  such  teachers.  / 

Here,  then,  is  our  situation.  Here  is  the  little  world  of  teachers  J 
and  pupils,  athletic  associations,  musical  and  literary  clubs, 
social  organizations  and  societies  for  amusement,  class-room  and 
playground,  of  which  we  must  make  analysis,  out  of  which  we 
1  1  must  get  a  new  synthesis,  a  definite  aim,  and  new  processes  of 
'-authoritative  direction,  losing  nothing  that  has  been  gained,  J 
\reco  vering  what  has  been  lost.  All  the  fresh  elements  we  have/ 
gained  are  valuable,  many  of  the  new  points  of  view  are  those 
from  which  we  must  look  upon  the  whole  task  and  function  of 
the  college  if  we  would  see  it  truly;  but  we  have  fallen  upon  an 
almost  hopeless  confusion  and  an  utter  dispersion  of  energy. 
We  must  pull  the  whole  inorganic  thing  together  under  a  new 
conception  of  what  the  college  must  be  and  do. 

The  chief  and  characteristic  mistake  which  the  teachers  and 
v<  ^    governors  of  our  colleges  have  made  in  these  latter  days  has  been 

'  \\*\TP  fWntpTJ   f  hpmfiAlvpq  linH   thpir  plans  t.QO 


sively  to4helmsinessJi  the  very  commojoplacebusiness,  of  instru<> 


hnvp  ™nf  pnnngh  re.g?r^ejijj^life  of  the  mind.  /The 
"^  JJYft  KY  ;TTgfir"^tion.  It_is^no  prolix  gut  to  be~stuifeci./ 
The  real  intellectuallife  of  a  body  of  undergraduates,  If  there  67 
any,  manifests  itself,  not  in  the  class-room,  but  in  what  they  do 
and  talk  of  and  set  before  themselves  as  their  favorite  objects 
between  classes  and  lectures.  You  will  see  the  true  life  of  a  col 
lege  in  the  evenings,  at  the  dinner-table  or  beside  the  fire  in  the 
groups  that  gather  and  the  men  that  go  off  eagerly  to  their  work, 
where  youths  get  together  and  let  themselves  go  upon  their 
favorite  themes,  —  in  the  effect  their  studies  have  upon  them 
when  no  compulsion  of  any  kind  is  on  them  and  they  are  not 
thinking  to  be  called  to  a  reckoning  of  what  they  know.  . 

-  The  effects  of  learning  are  its  real  tests,  the  real  tests  alike  of  /      I 
its  validity  and  of  its  efficacy.  The  mind  can  be  driven,  but  that^,  {v^ 
is  not  life.   Tjfe  is  vpJunjju-v  or  unconscious.   It  is  breathed  in      * 
out  of  a^  sustaining  atmosplierei '  It  is  shaped  by  environment.  * 


It  is  habitual,  contiguous.  productive.  It  does  not  consist  in 
tasks  performed,  but  in  powers  gained  and  enhanced.  It  cannot 
be  communicated  in  class-rooms  if  its  aim  and  eirid  is  the  class 
room.  Instruction  is  not  its  source,  but  only  its  incidental  means 


/and  medium. 


. 

/'    i  Here  is  the  key  to  the  whole  matter:  the  object  of  the  college, 
'/ff  I  as  we  have  known  and  used  and  loved  it  in  America,  ds  ino 
///     /scholarship  (except  for  the  few,  and  for  them  only  by  way  o 
introduction  and  first  orientation),  but  thejintellectual  and  spirit- 
ual  lif  el  Its  Me  and  discipline.  are  meant  to  be  a  process  oTfrrepa- 
raTlogrnot  a  process  of  information.  ^By  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  life  I  meafr  the  life  which  enables  tihfi  r"nrl  *-° 


and  make  pfopeFuse  of  the  modern  world  a.nc\  ajfl  fa  Qjgp^- 
j^unjties.  The  object  of  a  liberal  training  is  not  learning,  but  dis~~ 
cipline  and  the  enlightenment  of  the  mind.  Tl^e  educated  man  is 
to  be  discovered  by  his  point  of  view,  by  the  temper  ofr  his  inindr 
by  his  attitude  towards  life  and  his  fair  way  of  thinking.  He  can 
see,  he  can  discriminate,  he  can  combine  ideas  and  perceive 
whither  they  lead;  he  has  insight  and  comprehension.  His  mind, 
is  a  practised  instrument  of  appreciation.  HjeLas^mjpj^jipt 
contribute  light  than  heat  to  a~ctiscussion,  and  will  oftener  tEan 
arinther  show  the  power  of  uniting  'the  elements  oJ_^iiim£5nr 
suBject  in  a  whole  view;  he  has  the  knowledge  of  the  world  whirh 

A     Do_one^can  have  who  knows  only  his  own  generation  or  only  his 

V\ownJasL 

/      Whg^we  should^  seek  to  impart  in  ourc^llejes^thereforo,  is 
not  so  much  leanungTrseTTafc^^  You  can 

att^youngmeri;  and  you  calTmTparTit^to  them  in  the 
three  or  four  years  at  your  disposal.  It  consists  in  the  power  to 
distinguish  good  reasoning  from  bad,  in  the  power  to  digest  and 
interpret  evidence,  in  a  habit  of  catholic  observation  and  a  pref 
erence  for  the  non-partisan  point  of  view,  in  an  addiction  to 
clear  and  logical  processes  of  thought  and  yet  an  instinctive 
desire  to  interpret  rather  than  to  stick  in  the  letter  of  the  reason 
ing,  in  a  taste  for  knowledge  and  a  deep  respect  for  the  integrity 
.of  the  human  mind.  It  is  citizenship  of  the  world  of  knowledge, 
''but  not  ownership  of  it.  Scholars  are  the  owners  of  its  varied 
plots,  in  severalty. 
If  we  recognize  and  accept  these  ideas,  this  conception  of  the 


Impart 


t 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  473 

function  and  the  possibilities  of  the  college,  there  is  hope  of  av 
general  understanding  and  accommodation.  At  present  there  is 
a  fundamental  misunderstanding.   The  teachers  in  our  colleges 
are  men  of  learning  and  conceive  it  their  duty  to  impart  learn-     / 
ing;  but  their  pupils  do  not  desire  it;  and  the  parents  of  their  w 
pupils  do  not  desire  it  for  them.    They  desire  something  else 
which  the  teacher  has  little  thought  of  giving,  generally  thinks 
it  no  part  of  his  function  to  give.   Many  of  the  parents  of  our     > 
modern  undergraduates  will  frankly  tell  you  that  what  they 
want  for  their  sons  is  not  so  much  what  they  will  get  in  the  class 
room  as  something  else,  which  they  are  at  a  loss  to  define,  which  * 
they  will  get  from  the  associations  of  college  life :  and  many  more 
would  say  the  same  thing  if  they  were  equally  ingenuous.    I 
know  what  they  mean,  and  I  am  free  to  say  that  I  sympathize 
with  them.  They  understand  that  all  that  their  boys  get  in  the 
class-room  is  instruction  in  certain  definite  bodies  of  knowledge; 
that  all  that  they  are  expected  to  bring  away  from  their  lectures 
and  recitations  is  items  of  learning.  They  have  consorted  with 
college  men,  if  they  are  not  college  bred  themselves,  and  knowv 
how  very  soon  items  of  knowledge  slip  away  from  them,  no  mat-  * 
ter  how  faithful  and  diligent  they  may  have  been  in  accumulat 
ing  them  when  they  were  students.  They  observe  that  that  part 
of  the  college  acquisition  is  very  soon  lost.    College  graduates 
will  tell  you  without  shame  or  regret,  within  ten  years  of  their 
graduation,   that  they  remember  practically  nothing  of  what 
they  learned  in  the  class-room;  and  yet  in  the  very  same  breath 
they  will  tell  you  that  they  would  not  have  lost  what  they  did 
get  in  college  for  anything  in  the  World;  and  men  who  did  not 
have  the  chance  to  go  to  college  will  everywhere  be  found  to 
envy  them,  perceiving  that  college-bred  men  have  something  / 
which  they  have  not.   What  have  they  got,  if  learning  is  to  be* ' 
left  out  of  the  reckoning?  TEey  have  got  manliness,  certainly, 
espnTde  corpTthTtraining  of  generous  comradeships,  a  notable 
development  of  their  social  faculties  and  of  their  powers  of  appre 
ciation;  and  they  have  lived  under  the  influence  of  mental  tasks 
of  greater  or  less  difficulty,  have  got  from  the  class-room  itself, 
from  a  quiet  teacher  here  and  there,  some  intimation,  some  touch 
of  thespirit  of  Iearmng._  If  they  have  not,  they  have  got  only 
what  coulcf  no  doubt  be  got  from  association  with  generous,  self- 


*v* 

*iy 


j 


474  WOODROW  WILSON 

^respecting  young  men  anywhere.  Attendance  on  the  exercises  of 
the  college  was  only  a  means  of  keeping  them  together  for  four 
years,  to  work  out  their  comradeships  and  their  mutual  infections. 
.          I  said  just  now  that  I  sympathized  with  men  who  said  that 
\  4  what  they  wanted  f or  jhejr_song  in  f»nllg£rgjwg.sjiot  wh*t  th^y 
1     got  in  the^  class-room  so  much  as  what  they  got  from  the  life  and 
associations  of  the  place;  but  I  agree  with  them  only  if  what  is 
to  be  got  in  the  class-room  is  nothing  more  than  items  of  knowl 
edge  likely  to  be  quickly  lost  hold  of.  I  agree  with  them;  but  I 
see  clearly  what  they  are  blindly  feeling  after.    They  should 
desire  chiefly  what  their  sons  are  to  get  out  of  the  life  and  asso 
ciations  of  the  place;  but  that  life  and  those  associations  should 
be  freighted  with  things  they  do  not  now  contain.  The  processes 
of  lifej  tViA  ^ftpfa^nnnfr  ^c>£-  nnfinpjntinn,  are  the  only  things  that 
have  ever  g<Sf any  real  or  permanent  hold  on  men's  minds.  These 
are  the  conducting  media  for  every  effect  we  seek  to  work  on  the 
human  spirit.    The  undergraduate  should  have  scholars  for 
teachers.   They  should  hold  his  attention  steadily  upon  great 
1  .tested  bodies  of  knowledge  and  should  insist  that  he  make  him- 
4  self  acquainted  with  them,  if  only  for  thqj  nonce/But  they  will 
give  him  nothing  he  is  Kkely  to  carry  with  him  through  life  if 
\  they  stop  with  formal  instruction,  however  thorough  or  exacting 
Ithey  may  make  it.    Their  permanent  effects  will  be  wrought 
upon  his  spirit.  Their  teaching  will  follow  him  through  lircTonly 
if  they  reveal  to  him  the  meaning,  the  significance,  the  essential 
validity  of  what  they  are  about,  the  motives  which  prompt  it, 
the  processes  which  verify  it.  They  will  rule  him,  not  by  what 
they  know  and  inform  him  of,  but  by  the  spirit  of  the  things  they 
expound.    And  that  spirit  they  cannot  convey  in  any  formal 
manner.  They  can  convey  it  only  atmospherically,  by  making 
V  their  ideals  tell  in  some  way  upon  the  whole  spirit  of  the  place. 
How  shall  their  pupils  carry  their  spirit  away  with  them,  or 
the  spirit  of  the  things  they  teach,  if  beyond  the  door  of  the  class-  \  « 
room  the  atmosphere  will  not  contain  it?  College  is  a  place  of  X 


initiation.  TTtq  ^ffort.s  are  atmr>spfreriq-_  They  are  wrought  by 
'  i  imrjr£s»e»rt>y 
'  J  not  penetrate  beyohdTtne  doors  bf  the  class-room  are  lost,  are 


imrjr£s»e»rt>y  associaticln,  by  emulation.  The  voices  which 


Nre  void  or,  consequence  and  power.  No  thought  will 
obtain  or  liveHhere  for\  tie  transmission  of  which  the  prevailing 


\ 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEARNING  475 

atmosphere  is  a  non-conducting  medium]  I^mm^^entlemen 
get  from  their  years  at  college  only  manliness,  esprit  de 
release~of  their  social  gifts,  a  training  in  give  and  take7a~catholic 
taste~~in  men,  and  t.hp~s 


gainedmuch,  frut  theyjiave  not  gained  what  a  collegeshoul  ^  j 
gjveTtEeiiL   It  IhoulcTgive  them  insight  into  the 


spirit,  a  sense  of  having  lived  and  formed  theii 
nffiendships  amidst  the  gardens  of  the  mind  where  grows  the  tree  J 
of  thejmowledge  of  good  and  evil,  a  consciousness  of  having  \ 
taken  on  them  the  vows  of  true  enlightenment  and  of  having  1 
undergone  the  discipline,  never  to  be  shaken  off,  of  those  who  / 
seek  wisdom  in  candor,  with  faithful  labor  and  travail  of  spirit./ 
These  things  they  cannot  get  from  the  class-room  unless  the' 
spirit  of  the  class-room  is  the  spirit  of  the  place  as  well  and  of  its  y/ 
life;  and  that  will  never  be  until  the  teacher  comes  out  of  the 
'"class-room  and  makes  himself  a  part  of  that  life.  Contact,  com 
panionship,  familiar  intercourse  is  the  law  of  life  for  the  mind. 
The  comradeships  of  undergraduates  will  never  breed  the  spirit  / 
of  learning.   The  circle  must  be  widened.   It  must  include  the 
older  men,  the  teachers,  the  men  for  whom  life  has  grown  more 
serious~an6TTo  whom  It  has  revealed  more  of  its  meanings.   So 
longluTinslruction T  andTife  do  not  merge  in  our  c^IIegesT^o-iong       .v 
as  what  the  undergraduates^do  and~wliat  theysre tattghtoccupyA  /    l^ 


long  will  the  college  be  ineffectual. 

Looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  at  which  I  stand  in  all  that 
I  have  been  saying,  some  of  the  proposals  made  hi  our  day  for    , 
the  improvement  of  the  college  seem  very  strangely  conceived,  y 
It  has  been  proposed,  for  example,  to  shorten  the  period  of  gen 
eral  study  in  college  to  (say)  two  years,  and  let  the  student  who 
has  gone  the  distance  our  present  sophomores  have  gone  enter 
at  once  upon  his  professional  studies  or  receive  his  certificate  of 


£p-aduation.  I  take  it  for  granted  that  those  wh#  have  formu-  >  <" 
lated  this  proposal  never  really  Jmew^a,sopKompre  in  the  flesh,./  I) 
They  say,  simply,  that  the  studies  of  our  present  sophomores 
are  as  advanced  as  the  studies  of  seniors  were  in  the  great  days 
of  our  grandfathers,  and  that  most  of  our  present  sophomores 
are  as  old  as  our  grandfathers  were  when  they  graduated  from 
the  pristine  college  we  so  often  boast  of;  and  I  dare  say  that  is 


WOODROW  WILSON 

all  true  enough.  But  what  they  do  not  know  is,  that  our  sopho 
more  is  at  the  age  of  twenty  no  more  mature  than  the  sophomore 
of  that  previous  generation  was  at  the  age  of  seventeen  or  eigh- 
Jteen.  The  sap  of  manhood  is  rising  in  him  but  it  has  not  yet 
reached  his  head.  It  is  not  what  a  man  is  studying  that  makes 
him  a  sophomore  or  a  senior:  it  is  the  stage  the  college  process 
has  reached  in  him.  A  college,  the  American  college,  is  not  a 
^body  of  studies:  it  is  a  process  of  development.  It  takes,  if  our 
observation  can  be  trusted,  at  least  four  years  for  the  completion 
of  that  process,  and  all  four  of  those  years  must  be  college  years. 
cannot  be  school  years:  they  cannot  be  combined  with 
school  years.  The  school  process  is  an  entirely  different  one/The 
college  is  a  process  of  slow  evolution  from  the  schoolboy  ana  the 
schoolboy's  mental  attitude  into  the  man  and  his  entirely  altered 
view  of  the  world.  Nit  can  be  accomplished  only  in  the  college 
environment.  The  environment  is  of  the  essence  of  the  whole 
effect. 

If-Jrou  wifihJ*F  create-a-college,  therefore,  and  are  wise,  you 
will  seek  to  create  a  life.  We  have  allowed  ourselves  to  grow 
very  anxious  and  to  feel  very  helpless  about  college  athletics^ 
They  play  too  large  a  part  in  the  life  of  the  undergraduate,  we 
say;  and  no  doubt  they  do.  There  are  many  other  things  which 
play  too  large  a  part  in  that  life,  to  the  exclusion  of  intellectual 
interests  and  the  dissipation  of  much  excellent  energy:  amuse- 
of  all  kinds,  social  preoccupations  of  the  most  absorbing 
sort,  a  multitude  of  activities  which  have  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  discipline  and  enlightenment  of  the  mind.  But  that  is 
,  because  they  are  left  a  free  field.  Life,  at  college,  is  one  thing, 

*  the  work  of  the  college  another,  entirely  separate  ariefrfe  limit. 
The  lifeTs  the  field  that  is  leftTreetoT  athletics  not  only  buTalso 
for  every  other  amusement  and  diversion.  Studies  are  no  part 
of  that  life,  and  there  is  no  competition.  Studvis  the  work  which 

V  /  inteiaurjgtsthe  lif  e,  introduces  an  embarrassing  am 

yelement  into  it. 
S    \  the  interruption^  the  interference.       trvv*^^^^  *^\^ 

(    r    This  is  not  to  say  that  4here-aJe  not  a  great  many  undergrad- 

^juates  seriously  interested  in  study,  or  that  it  is  impossible  or 
even  difficult  to  make  the  majority  of  them,  the  large  majority, 

**  pass  the  tests  of  the  examinations.    It  is  only  saying  that  the 


„ 

*v  .*.      / 

un    [ 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LEAENING  477 

studies' do  not  spring  out  of  the  life  of  the  place  and  are  hindered 
by  it,  must  resist  its  influences  if  they  would  flourish.    I  have  no 
jealousy  of  athletics:  it  has  put  wholesome  spirit  into  both  the 
physical  and  the  mental  life  of  our  undergraduates »  There  are  , 
fewer  morbid  boys  in  the  new  college  which  we  know  than  there     , 
were  in  the  old  college  which  our  fathers  knew;  and  fewer  prigs,  J 
too,  no  doubt.  Athletics  are  indispensable  to  the  normal  life  of 
young  men,  and  are  in  themselves  wholesome  and  delightful, 
besides.    In  another  atmosphere,  the  atmosphere  of  learning, 
they  could  be  easily  subordinated  and  assimilated.   The  rea 
son  they  cannot  be  now  is  that  there  is  nothing  to  assimilate 
them,  nothing  by  which  they  can  be  digested.    They  make 
their  own  atmosphere  unmolested.  There  is  no  direct  compe 
tition. 

)  >The  same  thing  may  be  said,  for  it  is  true,  of  all  the  other 
amusements  and  all  the  social  activities  of  the  little  college  world. 
Their  name  is  legion:  they  are  very  interesting;  most  of  them  are 
in  themselves  quite  innocent  and  legitimate;  many  of  them  are 
thoroughly  worth  while.  They  now  engross  the  attention  and 
absorb  the  energies  of  most  of  the  finest,  most  spirited,  most 
gifted  youngsters  in  the  undergraduate  body,  men  fit  to  be 
scholars  and  masters  hi  many  fields,  and  for  whom  these  small 
things  are  too  trivial  a  preparation.  They  would  not  do  so  if 
other  things  which  would  be  certain  to^rig  these  very  men  were  J 
fn  competition  with  them,  were  known  and  spoken  of  and  per 
vasive  in  the  life  of  the  college  outside  the  class-room;  but  they 
|  are  not.  The  field  jg  ^Jgar  for  all  these  littl^a^'^**^  as  it  is 
clear  for  athletics.  Athletics  has  no  serious  competitor  except 
these  amusements  and  petty  engrossments;  they  have  no  serious 
competitor  except  athletics.  The  scholar  is  not  in  the  game.  He 
keeps  modestly  to  his  class-room  and  his  study  and  must  be  - 
looked  up  and  asked  questions  if  you  would  know  what  he  is 
thinking  about.  His  influence  can  be  set  going  only  by  the  delib 
erate  effort  of  the  undergraduate  himself  who  looks  him  up  and 
stirs  him.  He  deplores  athletics  and  all  the  other  absorbing  and 
Bon-academic  pursuits  which  he  sees  drawing  the  attention  of 
his  pupils  off  from  study  and  serious  preparation  for  life,  but  he  , 
will  not  enter  into  competition  with  them.  He  has.  never  dreamed 
of  such  a  thing;  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  the  life  of  the  place  is 


478  WOODROW  WILSON 

organized  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  hardly  possible  for  him  to 
do  so.  He  is  therefore  withdrawn  and  ineffectual, 
>  ^  It  is  the  duty  of  university  authorities  to  make  of  the  college 
a  society,  of  which  the  teacher  will  be  as  much,  and  as  naturally, 
a  member  as  the  undergraduate.  When  that  is  done  other  things 
will  fall  into  their  natural  places,  their  natural  relations.  Young 
men  are  capable  of  great  enthusiasms  for  older  men  whom  they 
have  learned  to  know  in  some  human,  unartificial  way,  whose 
quality  they  have  tasted  in  unconstrained  conversation,  the 
energy  and  beauty  of  whose  characters  and  aims  they  have 
learned  to  appreciate  by  personal  contact;  and  such  enthusiasms 
are  often  among  the  strongest  and  most  lasting  influences  of 
their  lives.  You  will  not  gain  the  affection  of  your  pupil  by  any 
thing  you  do  for  him,  impersonally,  in  the  class-room.  You  may 
gain  his  admiration  and  vague  appreciation,  but  he  will  tie  to 
you  only  for  what  you  have  shown  mm  personally  or  given  him 
in  ultimate  and  friendly  service. 

CertainJLajn,4iiat  it  is  impossible  to  rid  our  colleges  of  these 

.  * »,  _  *.  *-••"*••••» 

compete  with  study  and  drive  out  the  spirit  of  learn 
ing  by  the  simple  device  of  legislation,  in  which,  as  Americans, 
we  have  so  childish  a  confidence;  or,  at  least,  that,  if  we  did  suc- 
ceed  in  driving  them  out,  did  set  our  house  in  order  and  sweep 
and  garnish  it,  other  equally  distracting  occupants  would  crowd 
in  to  take  their  places.  For  the  house  would  be  empty.  There 
must  be  life  as  well  as  study.  The  question  is,  not  of  what  are* 
to  empty  it,  but  with  what  must  we  fill  it?  We  must  fill  it 
with  the  things  of  the  mind  and  of  the  spirit;  and  that  we  can 
do  by  introducing  into  it  men  for  whom  these  things  are  su 
premely  interesting,  the  main  objects  of  life  and  endeavor, 
teachers  who  will  not  seem  pedagogues  but  friends,  and  who  can 
by  the  gentle  infectkm  of  friendliness  make  thought  a  general 
contagion.  JPo  thatJcreate  the  atmosphere  and  the  contacts  oJ 
a  society  made  up  of  4nen  young  and  old,  mature  and  adolescent, 
it*  I    serious  anTgayJand  j|jffu)wi]l  create  an  emulation,  a  saturation? 
union  of  parts  in  a  common  lifeT  in  which  all  question^  of 
a -and  proertionjadll  ^ol^eJLb^msd^^v^So  soon  as 


the  things  which  now  dissipate  and  distract  and  dissolve  our 
college  life/eejjjie  t 


js  which  should  coordinate  and  regulate 
and  inspire  "It  in  direct  contact  with  them,  /geLtheir  ardor  and 


THE  SPntTT  OF  LEARNING  479 

their  competitiom  they  will  fall  into  their  proper  places,  will 
become  pleasures  and  cease  to  be  occupations,  will  delight  our 
undergraduate  days,  but  not  monopolize  them.  They  are  exag 
gerated  now  because  they  are  separated  and  do  not  exchange 
impulses  with  those  greater  things  of  whose  presence  they  are 
sopaetimes  hardly  conscious. 

^STo  doubt  there  are  many  ways  hi  which  this  vital  association 
may  be  effected,  but  all  wise  and  successful  ways  will  have  this 
in  common,  that  they  will  abate  nothing  of  the  freedom  and  self- 
government  which  have  so  quickened  and  purified  our  colleges 
in  these  recent  days  of  change,  will  have  no  touch  of  school  sur 
veillance  in  them.  You  cannot  force  companionships  upon  under 
graduates,  if  you  treat  them  like  men.  You  can  only  create  the 
conditions,  set  up  the  organization,  which  will  make  them  natu- 
ral.  The  scholar  should  not  need  a  statute  behind  him,  jyfcf  ?™"*i 
of  learning  should  not  covet  the  support  of  the  spirit  and  organi 
sation  of  the  piirserygj  It  will  prevail  of  its  own  grace  and  power 
if  you  will  but  give  it  a  chance,  a  conducting  medium,  an  air  in  v 
which  it  can  move  and  breathe  freely  without  effort  or  self- 
consciousness^  If  it  cannot,  I,  for  one,  am  unwilling  to  lend  it 
artificial  assistance.  It  must  take  its  chances  in  the  competition 
and  win  on  its  merits,  under  the  ordinary  rules  of  the  game  of  life, 
where  the  most  interesting  man  attracts  attention,  the  strongest 
personality  rules,  the  best  organized  force  predominates,  the 
most  admirable  thing  wins  allegiance.  We  are  not  seeking  to 

orce  a  marriage  between  knowledge  and  pleasure;  we  are  simply 
trying  to  throw 


that  they  will  fall  in  loyejwjth  nnp  another.  We  are  seeking  to 
exposeJite-ttadejgniduate  when  he  is  most  susceptible  to  the  best 
and  most  stimuIaun^flStaeuces  of~thejiniyerstty  in  the^Sope" 
an3~&eE£f.Jtliat  no  sensible  fellow  fit  for  a  career  caioTeiist~the 
infection.  / 

Plfta'  th^n'  *S  t*Mg'  tlmt  WP  "°W  delilrerat-ely  *^<  niirselves  / 
to  make  a  home  for  thy  spirit  of  learning  :^hat  we  reorganize  our 
colleges  on  the  lines  of  this  simple  conception,  that  a  college  is 
not  only  a  body  of  studies  but  a  mode  of  association;  that  its 
Icourses  are  only  its  formal  side,  its  contacts  and  contagions  its 
realities.  It  must  become  a  community  of  scholars  and  pupils,  — 
a  free  community  but  a  very  real  one,  in  which  democracy  may 


480  WOODROW  WILSON 

work  its  reasonable  triumphs  of  accommodation;  its  vital  proc- 
'  esses  of  union.  1^  am  not  suggesting  that  young  men  be  dra 
gooned  into  becoming  scholars  or  tempted  to  become  pedants, 
or  have  any  artificial  compulsion  whatever  put  upon  them,  but 
only  that  they  be  introduced  into  the  high  society  of  university 
J  ideals,  be  exposed  to  the  hazards  of  stimulating  friendships,  be 
introducedJnto  the  easyjconjraaeships  of  the  republic  of  letters . 

By  thjgjrnftqiis  thp  nlass-rnnm  itsHf  might  finme^ftjTcome  to  Seem 

a  ^art  of  life.^. 


• 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT 

BY   PAUL   SHOREY 
Delivered  before  the  Zeta  of  Ohio,  at  Oberlin  College,  on  May  31,  1910. 

A  SPEAKER  who  discourses  on  so  large  and  vague  a  theme  as 
"The  Unity  of  the  Human  Spirit"  must  first  of  all  convince  his 
audience  that  there  is  a  unity  in  his  own  mind  —  that  to  himself 
at  least  the  high-sounding  title  conveys  a  definite  and  intelligible 
idea.  Clever  writers,  from  the  witty  Lucian  down,  always  begin 
with  a  story.  They  wind  themselves  into  their  subject  like  a  ser 
pent,  as  was  said  of  Burke,  and  leave  to  the  reader  the  pleasure 
of  divining  for  himself  their  central  thought.  But  my  thesis,  as  I 
foresee,  will  involve  itself  in  such  a  maze  of  caveats,  exceptions, 
qualifications,  and  illustrations  that  I  must  give  you  the  clue  to 
my  intentions  at  the  start  by  a  direct  and  downright  statement 
of  my  simple  meaning. 

Our  age  has  lost,  or  is  losing,  its  faith  in  principles  and  stand 
ards.  We  of  course  admit  the  indefeasible  right  of  the  majority 
to  determine  the  prevailing  fashion,  either  in  biology  or  bonnets. 
Dollars  and  votes  furnish  a  practical  rule  for  the  measurement  of 
practical  success.  In  physical  things,  we  accept  on  faith  the 
standards  prescribed  by  the  exact  sciences.  But  for  the  spiritual 
values  that  elude  these  tests  we  have  no  fixed  measures  that  we 
trust,  and  we  are  skeptical  of  their  existence.  Our  temper  is  that 
which  the  historians  of  philosophy  ascribe  to  the  generation  of 
sophists  whom  Plato  satirized.  There  is  no  standard  but  sub 
jective  opinion,  and  the  plausible  eloquence  of  the  speaker  who 
can  carry  his  audience  with  him. 

From  these  uncertainties  of  an  age  of  transition,  we  are  to  be 
redeemed  —  my  scientific  friends  tell  me  —  by  the  construction  of 
a  new  scale  of  moral  and  spiritual  values  whose  graduations  will 
be  determined  by  the  principles  of  biology  and  the  law»  of  evolu 
tion.  It  may  be  so,  but  the  scale  is  not  yet  available  for  use,  and 
I  do  not  meddle  with  prophecy.  Meanwhile,  my  thesis  is  that 
those  who  are  not  willing  to  abandon  themselves  to  limitless 


482  PAUL  SHOREY 

subjectivity,  or  pin  their  faith  to  the  guesses  of  each  new  system- 
builder,  will  still  find  the  best  approximation  to  working  stand 
ards  and  principles  in  the  sublimated  common-sense  of  mankind, 
as  expressed  in  the  higher  literature  of  Europe,  from  Homer  to 
Tennyson,  from  Plato  to  John  Stuart  Mill.  And  my  text  is 
Tennyson's  line,  "Read  the  wide  world's  annals,  you,  and  take 
their  wisdom  for  your  friend." 

If  I  were  going  to  try  to  prove  this  principle  to  you,  we  should 
at  once  find  ourselves  plunged  over  head  and  ears  in  metaphysics. 
Any  one  who  sets  up  an  absolute  criterion  is  at  once  challenged 
to  produce  his  own  credentials,  and  then  proof  of  these,  and  so  on 
in  an  infinite  series.  The  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  all  opinion 
seems  the  one  certain  outcome  of  a  philosophy  of  evolution, 
though  curiously  enough,  if  you  ask  me  for  the  most  plausible 
statement  of  it,  I  should  have  to  refer  you  to  Jowett's  trans 
lation  of  Plato's  "  Thesetetus,"  or  Walter  Pater's  paraphase  of 
Lucian's  "Hermotimus,"  in  his  charming  "Marius  the  Epicu 
rean."  But,  to  waive  metaphysics,  even  if  you  should  concede 
that  the  wisdom  of  the  world  is  somewhere,  somehow  contained 
in  the  world's  best  literature,  you  might  still  ask  who  is  to  deter 
mine  what  literature  is  best,  and  what  doctor  of  eclecticism  is  to 
sift  from  it  the  residuum  of  abiding  truth.  And  the  answer,  "the 
combined  and  resultant  judgment  of  those  who  know  it  best," 
though  practically  sufficient,  might  seem  reasoning  in  a  circle  to 
a  disputatious  and  metaphysical  mind.  I  shall  not,  then,  attempt 
to  prove  anything  in  the  fifty  minutes  allotted  to  me.  I  shall 
merely  endeavor  to  anticipate  some  of  the  misconceptions  which 
the  bare  enunciation  of  the  principle  may  have  suggested,  to 
exhibit  its  value  as  a  corrective  of  some  exaggerations  of  modern 
popular  philosophies,  to  illustrate  a  few  of  its  possible  applica 
tions,  and  lastly  to  dwell  for  a  moment  on  the  practical  helpful 
ness  to  our  culture  and  the  sentimental  values  of  the  idea. 

Though  my  title  speaks  of  the  unity  of  the  human  spirit,  it 
virtually  means,  as  you  perceive,  the  identity  of  the  highest 
European  thought  of  the  past  two  or  three  thousand  years.  It 
means  that  despite  the  immense  progress  in  dominion  over 
Nature  and  in  the  organization  of  industry  the  resemblances  of 
age  to  age  are  greater  than  we  are  inclined  to  suppose,  and  that 
the  obvious  differences  concern  rather  the  average  level  or  gen- 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT  483 

eral  diffusion  of  intelligence  than  the  quality  of  the  highest  intel 
lects  from  generation  to  generation.  It  means  that  the  subtlest 
thought  and  the  noblest  ideals  of  the  best  European  minds  to 
day  are  not  inadequately  represented  by  some  one  even  in  the 
centuries  that  we  stigmatize  as  dark  or  frivolous.  It  means  that 
the  recognition  of  this  larger  unity  ought  to  qualify  the  contempt 
or  condescension  which  each  generation  feels  for  its  immediate 
predecessor;  that  it  overrides  many  of  the  superficial  historical 
generalizations  summed  up  in  such  expressions  as  the  classical, 
the  mediaeval,  the  romantic,  the  modern,  the  scientific  spirit,  or 
in  such  capitalized  abstractions  as  Renaissance,  Reformation, 
Enlightenment,  Classicism,  Romanticism,  etc.;  and  lastly  and 
chiefly  that  it  does  in  very  truth  provide  those  who  are  in  com 
munion  with  it  with  standards  and  principles  of  judgment  and 
taste  which  the  a  priori  dogmatism  of  the  new  sciences  of  man  and 
society  cannot  replace.  To  define  our  idea  further  by  negations, 
it  is  not  to  be  confused  with  the  truism  that  in  the  fundamentals 
of  life  and  experience  all  men  are  one,  nor  with  the  half-truth 
that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun,  though  each  of  these 
commonplaces  contributes  to  its  illustration. 

There  is  doubtless  a  deal  of  human  nature  in  the  remotest 
ages  and  most  alien  races  as  there  is  in  the  most  diverse  social 
classes.  "The  Colonel's  lady  and  Judy  O'Grady  are  sisters  under 
their  skin."  "Bei  den  alten  Aegyptern  gab  es  auch  Kinder,"  the 
ancient  Egyptians  had  children  too,  says  a  German  wit,  in  the 
footnote  to  one  of  Ebers'  Egyptian  novels. 

"We  are  very  slightly  changed 
From  the  semi-apes  who  ranged 
India's  prehistoric  clay," 

sings  Kipling.  And  to  prove  the  Egyptian  a  man  and  a  brother 
he  adds,  — 

"Who  shall  doubt  the  secret  hid 
Under  Cheops'  pyramid 
Was  that  the  contractor  did 
Cheops  out  of  several  millions?" 

Emerson,  the  prophet  of  Unity,  generalizes  the  thought  in  his 
essay  on  history.  "All  inquiry  into  antiquity,"  he  says,  "all 
curiosity  respecting  the  pyramids,  Stonehenge,  the  Ohio  circles, 
Mexico,  Memphis,  is  the  desire  to  do  away  with  this  wild,  say- 


484  PAUL  SHOREY 

age,  preposterous,  there  or  then,  and  introduce  in  its  place  the 
here  and  now.  It  is  to  banish  the  not  me  and  supply  the  me.  It  is 
to  abolish  difference  and  restore  unity."  This  is  true,  though  not 
the  truth  we  are  now  seeking.  It  is  true  that  in  proportion  as 
we  study  with  intelligent  sympathy  the  architecture,  the  art, 
the  poetry  even  of  the  remotest  peoples,  they  not  only  interest 
us  as  antiquarians  or  philologists,  but  reveal  their  common 
human  quality.  But  what  we  are  now  seeking  is  the  identity  in 
the  higher  reason  of  what  is  best  everywhere  with  what  is  best 
in  ourselves,  not  the  mere  psychological  and  dramatic  identifica 
tion  of  our  ordinary  selves  with  what  seems  alien  and  strange, 
but  proves  to  be  common  humanity.  The  unity  of  literature  and 
the  unity  of  the  human  spirit  means  for  us  the  identity  of  the 
imaginative  reason  in  all  its  authentic  products,  wherever  we 
find  them.  And  in  fact  we  find  them  chiefly  in  Homer  and  the 
Bible,  and  in  the  European  culture  that  proceeds  from  these 
fountain-heads.  To  the  professors  of  the  new  sciences  of  sociol 
ogy  and  comparative  literature,  this  will  seem  a  very  narrow 
view.  Science  demands  that  we  survey  mankind  with  compre 
hensive  view,  from  China  to  Peru.  But  in  our  quest  for  a  spirit 
ual  unity  and  continuity  of  tradition  that  will  practically  serve 
our  education,  our  culture,  and  our  humanity,  we  must  for  the 
present  exclude  China  and  Peru,  even  as  Kant  did  in  his  "Idea 
of  a  Universal  History,"  and  as  the  editor  of  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes  did  the  other  day  in  his  programme  for  the  study  of 
world  literature.  The  brotherhood  of  man  and  the  unity  of  the 
human  race  is  a  great  and  inspiring  idea,  but  it  is  not  the  specific 
idea  which  we  are  studying.  "O  Callicles,"  says  Socrates  to  the 
skeptical  pupil  of  the  Sophists,  "if  beneath  all  our  differences 
there  were  not  a  sameness  of  feeling  present  to  the  mind  of  each 
of  us,  no  man  could  tell  his  own  feeling  to  another."  The  sons  of 
Homer  in  every  age  speak  to  our  minds  and  hearts,  the  sons  of 
Confucius  not  yet,  however  it  may  be  in  the  centuries  to  come, 
about  which  I  do  not  undertake  to  prophesy. 

Still  less  is  our  principle  to  be  confounded  with  the  schoolboy's, 
the  pedant's,  or  the  moralist's  thesis  that  there  is  nothing  new 
under  the  sun.  It  is,  I  believe,  George  Eliot  who  somewhere  says 
that  conversation  could  not  go  on  without  a  tacit  agreement  to 
ignore  the  fact  that  everything  has  been  said  better  than  we  can 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT  485 

say  it.  And  she  has  described  the  blighting  effect  on  Dorothea's 
girlish  enthusiasms  of  Mr.  Casaubon's  production  of  a  classical 
parallel  for  every  idea  and  fancy  which  Rome  suggested  to  her 
young  imagination.  So  I  will  not  read  you  my  list  of  Greek  and 
Latin  anticipations  of  the  most  characteristically  modern  famil 
iar  quotations  in  Bartlett.  The  French  moralist,  La  Bruyere, 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  began  an  original  book,  as 
originality  goes,  with  the  remark,  "Everything  has  been  said 
and  a  modern  author  comes  too  late  by  the  seven  thousand  years 
during  which  men  have  been  thinking."  Even  in  this  utterance 
he  has  been  anticipated  by  at  least  two  Greek  poets,  not  to  speak 
of  Solomon.  Modern  science  and  invention  have  convinced  us 
once  for  all  that,  however  it  may  be  in  the  realm  of  familiar  quo 
tation  and  moral  truism,  in  the  material  world  Solomon  was 
wrong.  Telephones,  automobiles,  aeroplanes,  and  "palace  lin 
ers"  equipped  with  the  apparatus  of  wireless  communication, 
are  something  new  under  the  sun.  And  these  great  changes  in 
the  outward  circumstance  of  life  inevitably  affect  our  ideas. 
"The  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  with  the  process  of  the  suns." 
But  just  how  much  they  are  widened  is  one  of  the  most  interest 
ing  and  most  neglected  of  inquiries,  and  one  that  will  never  be 
intelligently  studied  so  long  as  our  definition  of  progress  is  "any 
old  thing  that  comes  along,"  and  our  conception  of  an  original 
idea  is  one  that  is  new  to  those  whose  reading  does  not  go  back 
of  Kipling  and  Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  Physical  science  holds 
on  her  undeviating  course,  and  we  all  bow  before  her.  But  meta 
physics  and  psychology,  the  so-called  sciences  of  man,  compara 
tive  literary  criticism,  and  the  sound  philosophy  of  history  are  all 
waiting  on  that  fuller  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  human 
spirit  which  culminates  in  the  recognition  of  its  higher  unity. 
The  time  and  energy  needed  for  this  we  waste  on  the  premature, 
abstract  constructions  of  the  pseudo-sciences,  and  in  the  writing 
and  study  of  up-to-date  textbooks  in  them.  The  status  of  phi 
losophy  depends  almost  wholly  on  the  precise  degree  of  its  de 
pendence  on  physical  knowledge.  This  can  be  learned  only  by 
noting  just  what  the  older  thinkers  could  and  could  not  achieve 
without  such  knowledge.  Instead  of  this,  we  content  ourselves 
with  the  unverified,  a  priori  assumption  that  their  thought  must 
have  been  childish,  and  that  the  new  biology,  the  new  physics, 


486  PAUL  SHOREY 

and  the  new  physiological  psychology  have  transformed  the 
problems  as  much  as  they  have  altered  the  fashions  of  the 
terminology  of  philosophy. 

The  first  condition  of  philosophic  and  comparative  literary 
criticism  is  knowledge,  a  knowledge  of  the  history  of  common 
place,  of  the  repetition  of  old  ideas  in  new  form,  and  of  the  rare 
emergence  of  new  ideas.  We  relegate  this  to  the  domain  of  ped 
antry,  parallel  passage  mongering,  and  plagiarism  hunting,  and 
accept  in  its  stead  mastery  of  the  impressionistic  epithet,  or 
a  priori  correlations  of  social  and  political  structure  with  forms 
of  literature.  Our  accepted  guides  may  be  prodigies  of  erudition 
in  some  chosen  modern  specialty.  From  the  larger  point  of  view 
of  the  total  human  spirit,  they  are  grossly  illiterate  —  capable, 
to  take  a  trifling  but  typical  example,  of  quoting  as  characteristic 
of  eighteenth-century  thought  a  passage  of  Bolingbroke's  "Re 
flections  on  Exile"  literally  translated  out  of  Seneca.  You  will 
not  suspect  me  of  the  pedantry  of  implying  that  everybody  must 
read  Seneca.  My  point  is  simply  that  a  false  conception  of  prog 
ress  and  a  fetish  worship  of  the  up-to-date  make  us  waste  on 
tenth-rate  modern  systematic  treatises  the  time  which  our  stu 
dents  need  for  the  world  books  that  exhibit  in  true  perspective 
the  development  of  the  human  spirit. 

A  nearer  illustration  is  furnished  by  our  attitude  towards  the 
great  men  of  the  Victorian  age.  Twentieth-century  thought  has 
undoubtedly  attained  some  points  of  view  overlooked  or  under 
estimated  by  Macaulay,  Mill,  Carlyle,  Arnold,  or  Tennyson. 
Nothing  could  be  more  instructive  than  to  observe  how  much  or 
little  of  this  is  real  gain,  and  how  much  is  merely  a  new  fashion 
of  terminology  or  metaphor  borrowed  from  physical  science  — 
a  substitution  of  "apperception"  for  association,  or  "reaction" 
for  conduct.  But  that  would  demand  discriminating  study.  It  is 
far  easier  to  dismiss  Tennyson,  with  Mr.  Wells,  as  the  dainty 
phrase-maker  of  the  mid- Victorian  bourgeois  compromise,  and 
to  ask  with  Professor  James,  "What  was  there  so  significant  in 
John  Mill?"  I  have  just  been  reading  Mill's  recently  published 
letters,  and  re-reading  the  essays  on  Coleridge,  on  Bentham,  on 
Utilitarianism,  on  "The  Conflict  in  America,"  on  Grote's  Plato, 
and  others  in  the  five  volumes  of  "Dissertations  and  Discus 
sions,"  and  I  find  this  significance  at  least  in  Mill:  that  his  writ- 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT  487 

ings  remain  to-day  a  far  safer  and  saner  guide  for  thoughtful 
undergraduates  than  the  popular  successes  and  the  textbooks  of 
the  past  ten  years  with  which  the  reference  shelves  of  all  the 
large  elective  courses  are  filled.  They  will  learn  from  him  lessons 
of  comprehensive  and  consecutive  thinking,  judicial  weighing  of 
all  considerations  pro  and  con,  temperance  and  precision  of 
expression,  and  scrupulous  fairness  to  opponents,  which  they 
will  hardly  get  from  the  undigested  mixtures  of  biology,  nervous 
anatomy,  anthropology  and  folk-lore,  answers  to  questionnaires, 
statistics,  and  reports  from  the  pedagogical  or  psychological 
seminar,  with  a  seasoning  of  uncritical  historical  and  illiterate 
literary  illustration,  that  compose  the  made-to-order  textbooks 
of  pedagogy,  sociology,  ethics,  and  psychology  on  which  their 
minds  are  fed.  And  if  they  are  told  that  Mill's  thought  is  now 
superseded  because  it  antedates  evolution,  the  conservation  of 
energy,  and  the  radio-active  physics,  they  can  find  no  more 
pleasant  or  instructive  Socratic  exercise  than  pressing  their  in 
formant  to  show  them  precisely  where  Mill  went  astray  from  ig 
norance  of  these  imposing  generalizations.  And  if  they  will  read 
the  essay  on  "Civilization,"  published  in  1836,  they  may  still  re 
tain  in  their  vocabulary  the  convenient  phrase  "twentieth-cen 
tury  thought,"  but  they  will  certainly  be  more  sparing  of  its  use. 
This  exaggerated  faith  in  progress  which  we  abuse  to  depreci 
ate  the  nineteenth  century  was  itself  one  of  three  or  four  domi 
nant  nineteenth-century  ideas  which  seem  to  contradict  the  con 
ception  of  the  unity  of  the  human  spirit,  and  which  require  to  be 
checked  and  corrected  by  it.  Nineteenth-century  thought  as  a 
whole  was  a  reaction  against  a  very  narrow  but  real  faith  in  the 
unity  of  human  reason.  The  philosophers  of  the  French  Enlight 
enment  conceived  man  as  one,  but  that  one  was  a  polished,  let 
tered,  eighteenth-century  Frenchman.  "Peut-on  etre  Persan?" 
is  a  naive  phrase  of  French  satire  which  embodies  this  sentiment. 
You  don't  really  expect  us  to  believe  that  you  are  not  a  French 
man,  but  a  faraway  Persian  —  it 's  too  absurd.  The  hymn  of 
man  and  universal  brotherhood,  as  they  sang  it,  ran :  — 

"Little  Indian,  Sioux  or  Crow, 
Little  frosty  Esquimau, 
Little  Turk  or  Japanee, 
Oh,  don't  you  wish  that  you  were  me?" 


488  PAUL  SHOREY 

If  he  did  wish  it,  they  were  quite  ready  to  adopt  and  enlighten 
him.  But  French  psychology,  French  lucidity  and  wit,  the  lit 
erature  of  the  grand  si&cle,  the  criticism  of  Boileau,  the  tragedy 
of  Racine,  the  philosophy  and  science  of  the  "Encyclopaedia," 
these  were  the  norm  and  measure  of  humanity,  past  and  present, 
for  them.  Wherever,  in  contemporary  Europe,  in  Medicean 
Italy,  in  Augustan  Rome,  in  Periclean  Athens,  they  divined 
qualities  akin  to  these,  they  recognized  men  and  brothers.  The 
rest  were  Goths  and  barbarians.  This  point  of  view,  slightly 
modified,  was  that  of  the  English  writers  of  the  so-called  Classical 
Age.  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  was  a  true  child  of  the 
eighteenth  century  when  she  said  that  in  all  her  travels  she  had 
found  but  two  kinds  of  people,  men  and  women. 

Now,  there  is  a  kernel  of  truth  in  this  doctrine.  The  error  lay 
in  recognizing  and  assimilating  only  so  much  of  the  exotic  or 
the  past  as  matched  their  own  ordinary  selves,  instead  of  looking 
for  the  identity  of  their  higher  selves  with  the  best  in  all  the  past, 
however  quaintly  disguised.  In  its  reaction  against  this  view,  the 
nineteenth  century  was  led  to  exaggerate  its  own  three  great 
ideas,  the  idea  of  relativity,  the  idea  of  evolution,  and  the  new 
historic  method  of  judging  every  age  by  the  standards  of  its  time 
spirit. 

We  have  already  agreed  to  waive  the  metaphysics  of  relativ 
ity.  If  all  things  are  relative  and  subjective,  yet  some  things  are 
relatively  more  stable  than  others,  and  these  become  for  prac 
tical  purposes  our  norms.  Measures  of  some  sort  we  must  have. 
Standards  and  ideals  that  hold  good  for  the  past  three  thousand 
years  of  European  culture  will  serve.  We  may  cheerfully  concede 
that  they  may  not  hold  for  inter-glacial  man,  or  for  the  hairless 
and  toothless  biped  who  will  supplant  us  when  evolution  shall 
have  wrought  its  perfect  work.  Heraclitus  proved  that  beauty  is 
relative  by  the  argument  that  the  handsomest  man  is  to  a  god 
as  the  ugliest  ape  is  to  man,  and  a  French  writer  on  aesthetics 
says  that  in  order  to  know  whether  monkeys  are  really  and  truly 
ugly  we  should  have  to  get  the  opinion  of  the  monkeys.  But  in 
spite  of  these  ingenious  gentlemen,  we  may  dogmatize  so  far  as 
to  affirm  that  the  Hermes  of  Praxiteles,  or  the  Theseus  of  the 
Parthenon  are  absolutely  more  beautiful  than  a  wilderness  of 
monkeys  carved  in  ivory  by  deft  Japanese  or  Hindoo  hands. 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT  489 

Another  less  abstract  use  of  this  idea  of  relativity  is  found  in 
the  picturesque  enumeration  of  the  diversity  of  custom  and 
belief.  If  the  gentlemanly  and  philosophic  Parsee  merchants  of 
Bombay  are  shocked  at  our  burial  of  the  dead,  while  we  revolt 
from  the  thought  of  exposing  them  to  vultures  on  high  sunlit 
towers,  are  not  all  ideas  of  decency  the  mere  conventions  of 
habit?  "Pretty  justice!"  cries  Pascal,  "truth  on  this  side  of  the 
Pyrenees,  falsehood  on  that."  This  method  is  as  old  as  the 
father  of  history.  Herodotus  relates  that  King  Darius  summoned 
the  priests  of  an  Indian  tribe  whose  custom  it  was  to  eat  their 
parents  and  asked  them  for  what  price  they  would  consent  to 
burn  the  bodies  in  the  Greek  fashion,  and  they  cried  aloud  and 
bade  him  not  blaspheme.  The  proposal  to  adopt  the  Indian  cus 
tom  was  rejected  with  equal  horror  by  the  Greeks  present.  Thus, 
the  historian  concludes,  Pindar  was  right  in  affirming  that  cus 
tom  is  lord  of  all.  A  similar  anecdote  is  related  of  Pyrrho,  the 
founder  of  skepticism,  and  the  device  has  always  been  a  favorite 
one  with  skeptics,  satirists,  and  philosophic  historians.  A  little 
treatise  of  an  unknown  Greek  sophist  employs  it  to  prove  the 
subjectivity  of  all  ideas  of  the  good,  the  true,  and  the  beautiful. 
The  worthy  bishop  Eusebius  uses  it  to  establish  the  capricious 
freedom  of  the  human  will,  in  defiance  of  climate  and  the  stars. 
It  is  felt  as  a  satiric  undertone  in  the  quaint  absurdities  of  Sir 
John  Mandeville's  "Voyage  and  Travail";  Montaigne  and 
Montesquieu  make  constant  use  of  it.  It  is  still  an  effective 
retort  on  a  priori  cocksureness. 

It  is  perhaps  most  plausible  to  us  in  its  application  to  literary 
and  aesthetic  controversy.  All  such  debates,  it  has  been  said,  in 
the  end  resolve  themselves  into  this,  "I  have  more  taste  than 
you."  The  Ibsen,  I  did  not  say  the  Gibson,  girl  smiles  at  the 
heroine  of  Jane  Austen  whom  "those  exquisite  verses  of  Cowper 
drove  wild."  Cowper  does  not  agitate  her  bosom.  But  if  she 
had  been  born  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  his  verses  would 
have  "driven  her  wild"  too,  and  in  place  of  Botticelli  and  the 
Hermes  she  would  have  adored  Guido  Reni  and  the  Apollo 
Belvedere.  Voltaire's  judgments  of  Shakespeare  and  Dante  and 
Milton,  and  the  Quarterly  reviewer's  opinion  of  Keats,  Shelley, 
Wordsworth,  and  Tennyson,  survive  merely  as  jests  or  warn 
ings. 


490  PAUL  SHOREY 

By  a  clever  use  of  such  instances,  a  plausible  writer  can  con 
vince  a  willing  public  that  there  are  no  real  standards  of  literary 
taste,  style,  or  correct  usage;  that  if  Colonel  Roosevelt  writes, 
"The  bear  laid  in  wait,"  if  President  Taft  proclaims  that  "our 
prosperity  is  predicated  upon  good  crops,"  if  Tolstoi  argues  that 
"King  Lear"  is  a  bad  tragedy,  and  Brunetiere  affirms  that 
"Plato  reasons  like  a  sophist  and  thinks  like  a  child," -these  emi 
nent  persons  are  as  likely  to  be  right  as  is  my  finicking  scholar 
who  eschews  these  locutions  and  rejects  these  judgments.  I  do 
not  propose  to  debate  the  question  here.  It  is  enough  to  remind 
you  of  Matthew  Arnold's  dictum  that  "somewhere,  somehow, 
such  matters  are  settled  by  the  consensus  of  the  competent." 
And  I  will  add  that,  due  allowance  made  for  accidental  slips, 
idiosyncrasies,  and  whims,  the  competent  are  those  who  know, 
and  they  are  much  more  nearly  at  one  in  their  estimates  than 
appears  to  superficial  observation.  Nearly  all  grotesquely  false 
literary  judgments  are  due  to  defective  knowledge.  The  public 
does  not  perceive  this,  because  it  confuses  different  kinds  of 
competence,  and  mistakes  the  merely  verbal  scholar  on  the  one 
hand,  or  the  brilliant  phrase-maker  on  the  other,  for  the  serious 
and  critical  student  of  literature.  But  the  majority  of  those  who 
are  really  acquainted  with  the  world's  best  books  are  in  substan 
tial  agreement  about  them,  and  M.  Anatole  France,  who  amuses 
himself  by  sustaining  the  thesis  of  the  relativity  of  all  literary 
opinions,  is  in  fact  more  certain  of  the  quality  of  a  good  line  in 
Virgil  than  he  is  of  anything  else  in  the  world. 

Closely  akin  to  the  idea  of  relativity  is  the  idea  of  evolution. 
How  can  we  affirm  absolute  ideals  and  standards,  if  our  habits, 
our  opinions,  and  the  very  faculties  of  mind  by  which  we  form 
them  are  transitory  products  of  an  unstable  equilibrium  in  a 
process  that  began  in  nebulous  star-drift  and  will  never  pause 
till  the  sun  is  cold  and  silent  as  the  moon?  Well,  absolutely  we 
cannot.  But  again,  for  practical  purposes,  we  may  and  must. 
A  singular  air  of  unreality  is  given  to  much  current  popular 
philosophy  and  science  by  the  habit  of  starting  every  topic  with 
the  amoeba  and  winding  up  with  Utopia.  We  don't  know  much 
about  either,  but  constant  allusion  to  them  generates  an  elusive 
sense  of  familiarity.  This  is  what  Mr.  Chesterton  calls  "remot- 
ism,"  the  tendency  to  think  first  of  those  things  which  lie  far- 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT  491 

thest  away  from  the  centre  of  human  experience.  George  Eliot 
long  ago  satirized  it  as  the  improved  method  of  explaining  every 
thing  by  a  reference  to  the  tribes  least  like  ourselves.  And  Mr. 
John  Morley,  trying  to  account  for  what  he  calls  "the  passing 
eclipse  of  interest  in  wisdom  of  the  world,"  says,  "The  literary 
passion  for  primitive  times  and  the  raw  material  of  man  has 
thrust  polished  man,  the  manufactured  article,  into  a  secondary 
place."  There  are  otherwise  rational  men  who  will  reply  to  a 
pertinent  historical  or  literary  precedent  that  the  past  is  obso 
lete  and  we  must  solve  the  problems  of  the  day  with  the  experi 
ence  of  the  hour.  But  if  you  tell  them  that  the  female  of  an 
unpronounceable  crustacean  devours  the  male,  or  that  the  devel 
opment  of  the  human  embryo  recapitulates  the  evolution  of  the 
vertebrate  from  the  tidal  ascidian,  they  will  accept  these  inter 
esting  truths,  if  the  truths  they  be,  as  serious  contributions  to  the 
understanding  of  twentieth-century  marriage  or  education.  As 
Superintendent  Harris  used  to  put  it,  we  study  the  embryology 
of  the  frog,  but  not  that  of  our  civilization.  The  word  evolution, 
outside  of  biological  science,  has  become  the  shibboleth  of  con 
fused  or  evasive  thinking.  The  relish  of  writers  who  are  not 
biologists  for  the  polysyllabic  neologisms  of  the  new  metaphysi 
cal  biology  resembles  the  gusto  of  a  half -educated  colored  gentle 
man  for  the  tremendous  pomposity  of  sesquipedalian  verbiage. 
The  value  for  biological  science  of  orthoplasy,  orthogenesis, 
ontogeny,  phylogeny,  and  the  principle  of  projected  efficiency 
I  will  not  presume  to  discuss.  But  for  the  morals,  the  psychol 
ogy,  and  the  institutions  of  man  as  he  is,  they  are  about  as 
significant  as  their  mediaeval  analogues,  the  inquiry  how  many 
angels  can  poise  simultaneously  on  a  needle's  point,  or  the  ques 
tion  whether  a  chimaera,  bombinating  in  a  vacuum,  can  eat 
second  intentions.  In  spite  of  the  space  they  still  occupy  in 
pretentious  treatises,  they  are  solemn  humbugs,  and  it  shows  a 
lack  of  intellectual  seriousness  to  take  them  seriously  at  all.  We 
live,  it  may  be,  in  a  process  of  evolution,  but  for  all  practical 
ends  of  the  higher  human  life  it  is  the  historic  evolution  of 
Western  European  civilization,  and  not  the  cosmogonic  evolu 
tion  of  the  universe.  "Evolution,"  says  John  Fiske,  "is  correct 
ing  our  perspective.  Events  only  three  thousand  years  old  seem 
recent."  Do  they  really?  I  doubt  it.  But  if  they  do  it  is  because 


492  PAUL  SHOREY 

the  abuse  of  the  language  of  science  has  so  confused  our  common 
sense  that  we  habitually  put  our  eye  to  the  big  end  of  the  tele 
scope.  Nobody  really  believes  that  all  our  social  and  educational 
arrangements  are  contingent  upon  the  fortunes  of  the  planetesi- 
mal  hypothesis  or  the  ups  and  downs  of  the  theory  of  the  conti 
nuity  of  the  germ  plasm.  But  everybody  who  writes  a  big  book 
on  sociology  pretends  to  believe  it. 

But,  it  will  be  said,  the  new  philosophy  of  history  proclaims 
the  diversity  of  man  from  age  to  age,  and  the  great  error  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  its  deficiency  in  historic  imagination.  It 
measured  all  things  by  itself.  As  Shelley  said  of  Wordsworth,  — 

"It  had  as  much  imagination 

As  a  pint  pot,  it  never  could 
Fancy  another  situation 
From  which  to  dart  its  contemplation 

Than  that  whereon  it  stood." 

That  is  what  we  have  all  been  taught  and  have  all  been  repeating 
for  the  past  hundred  years.  But  are  we  not  in  danger  of  confound 
ing  psychological  comprehension  and  imaginative  dramatic  sym 
pathy  with  deliberate  acceptance  and  reasoned  approval?  Must 
we  not  discriminate  between  the  imaginative  historical  reali 
zation  of  conditions  unlike  our  own,  and  the  extenuation  of  ab 
solute  wrong,  the  compromise  with  absolute  error?  The  word 
(absolute)  does  not  beg  the  question.  We  mean  what  is  wrong 
and  false  by  the  standards  and  ideals  that  progressively  tend  to 
get  themselves  established  in  the  best  minds  from  Homer  to 
Tennyson,  from  Thales  to  Darwin,  and  to  which  witness  is 
borne  even  in  the  darkest  times  by  an  enlightened  minority. 
This  tendency  is  a  fact,  and  it  constitutes  that  unity  of  the 
human  spirit  which  we  deny  and  repudiate  at  our  peril.  The 
existence  in  any  age  or  country  of  one  right-thinking  representa 
tive  of  reason  and  truth  justifies  us  from  this  point  of  view  in 
passing  absolute  judgment  of  condemnation  on  those  who  sin 
against  the  light.  If  superstition  is  a  folly  and  a  curse,  the  miracle 
monger,  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  cannot  plead  the  spirit  of  his  age, 
for  it  was  the  age  of  Plutarch's  noble  essay  on  superstition.  The 
charlatan  and  faith  healer,  Alexander  of  Abonoteichos,  is  not 
justified  by  the  practice  of  his  contemporaries,  for  he  was  the 
contemporary  of  the  philosophic  physician  Galen  and  the  clear- 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT  493 

eyed  Lucian.  It  is  of  no  avail  to  cite  long  lists  of  saintly  and 
learned  men  who  approved  of  burning  witches  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries.  For,  to  say  nothing  of  skeptical 
humanists  and  philosophic  liberals,  the  arguments  of  John  Wier 
and  Cornelius  Agrippa  turn  the  burden  of  proof  and  the  pre 
sumption  against  the  intelligence,  the  good  faith,  or  the  courage 
of  any  educated  man  who  countenanced  that  abomination.  We 
might  accept  the  plea  that  the  time-spirit  justified  Calvin  in 
burning  Servetus,  if  we  did  not  remember  in  the  same  century 
Zwinglius  and  the  genial  tolerance  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  and 
Montaigne's  observation  that  it  is  setting  a  very  high  value  on 
our  conjectures  to  cook  a  man  alive  for  them.  The  sentimental 
rhetoric  of  Victor  Hugo's  poem  cannot  save  the  inquisitor 
Torquemada.  The  plea  that  he  loved  the  heretics  and  burned 
them  for  their  good  will  not  serve.  Sophocles,  Plato,  Cicero, 
Plutarch,  Boethius,  Roger  Bacon,  St.  Francis,  Giordano  Bruno, 
Montaigne,  Milton,  and  Locke  would  have  judged  him  precisely 
as  we  do.  Why  should  we  unsettle  that  practical  moral  certainty 
by  the  affectation  of  a  pseudo-scientific,  dramatically  impartial, 
relative,  and  psychological  estimate? 

So  is  our  judgment  of  the  literature  of  the  past.  Beyond  and 
above  the  would-be  scientific  literary  criticism  of  evolution  is  the 
estimate  of  the  great  book  by  its  abiding  value  for  the  human 
spirit.  Homeric  theories  come  and  go.  I  have  myself  assisted  at 
the  obsequies  of  not  a  few.  And  the  theory  of  Homeric  unity, 
which  seems  to  be  getting  the  upper  hand  in  1910,  is  rapidly 
approximating  to  that  which  my  scholarly  colleagues  thought  it 
mere  sentimentalism  in  me  to  maintain  in  1892.  Homeric  theo 
ries  come  and  go.  But  Homer  abides,  and  it  is  beginning  to 
appear  that  the  old-fashioned  boys  whose  enthusiasm  was  nour 
ished  on  the  somewhat  artificial  dignity  of  Pope's  Homer  were 
quite  as  near  even  to  the  scientific  truth  as  are  the  generation 
that  were  taught  to  regard  the  poet  as  a  lively  barbarian,  chant 
ing  his  rude,  unpremeditated  lays  to  wild  tribesmen  about  the 
camp-fire.  In  Spencer's  "Tables  of  Sociology,"  Homer  is  merely 
the  witness  to  curious  survivals  of  barbaric  rites  and  institutions. 
To  Matthew  Arnold,  he  is  the  clearest-souled  of  men,  and  the 
chief  prop  of  the  mind,  the  "Iliad"  is  the  "most  important  poet 
ical  monument  existing,"  and  its  finest  lines  are  the  touchstone 


494  PAUL  SHOREY 

of  the  "grand  style  in  simplicity."  There  is  place  for  both 
points  of  view,  but  the  place  of  the  one  is  the  conjectural 
science  of  a  decade,  and  that  of  the  other  the  eternal  soul  of 
humanism. 

Systems  of  philosophy  have  their  day  and  pass,  but  the 
Socratic  dialogues  remain,  and  Plato,  as  Emerson  says,  makes 
havoc  with  our  originalities.  Time  fails  to  explain  to  you  how 
exquisitely  funny  are  the  hasty  modern  interpreters  who  apolo 
gize  for  his  logic,  the  German  specialists  who  discover  his  fal 
lacies  and  self-contradictions,  the  commencement  orators  of 
science  who  proclaim  his  "passing." 

Cicero  lived  before  the  days  of  modern  science,  and  had  his 
personal  weaknesses,  but  in  the  forum  of  human  reason  his  intel 
ligence  needs  less  allowance  and  apology  than  Gladstone's.  And 
the  eighteenth-century  statesmen,  who  quoted  him  freely  and  re 
garded  him  as  a  man  and  a  brother,  understood  him  better  than 
the  disciples  of  Mommsen  have. 

How  shall  we  know  the  true  Dante?  By  immersing  ourselves 
in  parochial  Italian  politics  and  scholastic  philosophy  and  dwell 
ing  solely  on  the  things  that  divide  him  from  us,  or  by  learning 
to  distil  from  this  detail  the  universal  quality  of  soul  that  makes 
of  him  the  mind  in  whose  spiritual  communion  Kant  and  Glad 
stone  and  Longfellow  and  Lowell  and  Tennyson  find  most  af 
finity  and  most  solace? 

The  critical  scholar  must  study  Shakespeare  as  an  Elizabethan, 
with  the  vocabulary,  the  information,  and  the  prejudices  of  his 
fellow  Elizabethans.  The  science  of  comparative  literature  may 
classify  him  as  the  poet  of  feudalism  and  contrast  him  with 
Homer,  poet  of  the  tribe,  JEschylus,  poet  of  the  city  state,  Dante, 
poet  of  Catholicism,  Goethe,  poet  of  modern  culture,  Walt 
Whitman,  poet  of  the  coming  democracy.  But  the  true  Shake 
speare  soars  to  heights  above  these  distinctions,  where  Walt 
Whitman  and  the  lesser  Elizabethans  are  invisible,  and  where 
he  holds  converse  with  his  peers  across  the  centuries.  The  real 
Shakespeare  is  not  the  Elizabethan  playwright  who  throws  sops 
to  the  Cerberus  of  the  pit,  but  the  poetic  mirror  of  universal 
humanity,  the  magician  whose  golden  phrase  "sweetly  torments 
us  with  invitations  to  its  own  inaccessible  home,"  the  supreme 
word-compeller  who  stamps  the  seal  and  superscription  of  his 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT  495 

imagination  upon  truths  equally  valid  for  the  Homeric  tribe 
and  the  democracy  of  the  future. 

Thus,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  the  naive  reader  who  inter 
prets  every  book  as  if  it  were  written  now  and  here  and  addressed 
to  him  will  often  err  less  than  the  philosopher  of  relativity  who 
persists  in  making  condescending  allowance  for  the  spirit  of  the 
age.  The  deficiencies  which  we  detect  in  the  great  thinkers  of  the 
past  are  apt  to  prove  those  of  our  own  imperfect  perception  and 
misplaced  emphasis.  As  Morley  says  of  Emerson,  all  great  minds 
perceive  all  things;  the  only  difference  is  in  the  order  in  which 
they  shall  choose  to  place  them.  They  see  in  its  relation  to  the 
whole  the  particular  aspect  of  life  which  the  glamour  of  their  art 
and  the  potency  of  their  genius  throws  into  excessive  relief  for 
us.  And  our  more  intimate  study  of  them  is  a  progressive  redis 
covery  in  them  of  the  forestalling  and  explaining  away  of  our 
over  hasty  censures.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  to  vindicate  a  papal 
infallibility  for  great  writers,  but  merely  to  affirm  that  the  ap 
preciation  of  their  excellency  is  a  more  fruitful  study  than  the 
criticism  of  their  defects,  or  the  attempt  to  account  for  them 
by  vigorous  and  rigorous  systems. 

Our  idea  might  be  further  illustrated  by  the  great  books  of  the 
second  order,  those  that  fall  short  of  the  highest  imaginative 
inspiration,  but  which  are  yet  world  books  by  virtue  of  wealth  of 
content,  justice  of  observation,  subtlety  of  wit,  sagacity  of  judg 
ment,  sanity  in  the  criticism  of  life.  Foremost  in  this  class  are 
the  great  reservoir  books,  books  that  collect  from  the  past  and 
distribute  to  the  future  enormous  stores  of  observation  and  sage 
reflection.  Plutarch,  Quintilian,  Seneca,  Lucretius,  Boethius, 
Montaigne,  Bacon,  Burton,  and  last,  but  for  us  Americans  not 
least,  Emerson's  Essays.  To  these  we  may  add  the  great  wits 
and  satirists,  Aristophanes,  Horace,  Juvenal,  Lucian,  Moliere, 
Rabelais,  La  Bruyere,  Swift,  Pope.  When  we  have  stripped  from 
them  all  scurrility,  all  declamation,  all  merely  local  hits  and 
topical  songs,  we  find  that  they  all  employ  the  same  trenchant 
reason,  the  same  wholesome  laughter,  to  lash  the  same  follies, 
expose  the  same  pettinesses,  and  shame  us  by  contrast  into 
recognition  of  the  same  ideal  of  a  larger  and  truer  humanity. 
A  like  lesson  is  taught  by  the  books  of  characters  and  aphorisms, 
the  books  of  the  wisdom  of  life,  and  the  maxims  of  good  sense, 


496  PAUL  SHOREY 

of  which  Mill  said  that  there  is  a  nearly  equal  supply  in  all  ages, 
while  Schopenhauer  puts  the  same  thought  less  good-naturedly 
in  the  remark  that  in  every  age  wise  men  have  said  the  same 
things  and  fools  have  done  the  same  things,  namely  the  contrary. 
But  most  of  all  is  the  lesson  of  the  unity  of  reason  brought  home 
to  us  by  increasing  experience  of  the  fair  proportion  of  sanity 
and  intelligence  that  we  can  count  upon  meeting  in  the  better 
books  of  the  darkest  ages  and  in  the  most  obsolete  branches  of 
literature.  Genius  sometimes  fails,  but  the  torch  of  reason  is 
never  extinguished.  The  Epigonoi  of  Alexandria  and  Rome 
did  not  attain  the  artistic  heights  of  the  ages  of  Pericles  and 
Augustus,  but  on  nearer  acquaintance  many  of  them  prove  to 
be  scholars  and  gentlemen  uncommonly  like  those  of  our  own 
day.  The  really  good  mystics,  a  Philo  Judaeus,  a  Plotinus,  when 
we  allow  for  their  peculiar  rhetoric  and  the  trick  of  allegory,  turn 
out  to  be  very  sensible  fellows.  It  is  only  the  weaklings  that  take 
to  table-rappings,  divine  healing,  thought-transference,  Mrs. 
Piper,  and  Madame  Eusapia  Palladino.  The  dark  ages  are  illu 
mined  not  only  by  Gothic  architecture  and  Provengal  lyric,  and 
fitful  flashes  of  genius  and  saintliness,  but  by  Boethius,  through 
whom  King  Alfred,  Dante,  and  Chaucer  are  still  in  touch  with 
Plato,  by  the  learning  and  the  good  sense  of  the  Venerable  Bede, 
the  speculative  insight  of  John  Scotus  Erigena,  the  scientific 
divinations  of  Roger  Bacon,  the  humanism  of  John  of  Salisbury, 
the  liberalism  of  William  of  Ockham. 

We  do  not  now  need  to  read  the  Latin-writing  scholars  of 
the  Renaissance.  But  those  who  do  dip  into  them  are  amazed 
at  the  stores,  not  merely  of  erudition,  but  of  intelligence,  right 
feeling,  sound  psychology,  and  anticipations  of  modern  thought 
found  in  such  men  as  Politian,  Erasmus,  Vives,  Bruno,  and 
Gassendi.  It  is  the  fashion  to  laugh  at  the  ponderous  tomes  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  But  in  a  recent  perusal  of  old  Burton 
I  have  been  struck  not  so  much  with  the  learning  of  the  man  as 
with  the  good  sense  and  keen  discrimination  of  one  whom  Taine, 
misled  perhaps  by  his  fantastic  table  of  contents,  represents  as 
merely  an  absurd  pedant.  This  is  not  the  only  experience  of  the 
kind  that  every  extension  of  our  reading  brings  us.  A  large  pro 
portion  of  the  good  if  secondary  writers  of  the  past  are  much 
more  rational  than  minor  critics  and  compilers  of  modern  text- 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT  497 

books  represent  them  to  be.  Their  errors  and  oddities  are  always 
exaggerated  by  the  writers  of  the  next  ensuing  age,  who  feel  too 
deeply  the  differences  in  the  fashion  of  their  expression  to  appre 
ciate  their  agreement  in  the  fundamentals  of  reason.  Even  the 
representatives  of  the  pseudo-classicism,  which  the  romantic 
revolt  has  made  a  byword  with  us,  make  a  very  different  appear 
ance  in  their  own  person  from  that  which  they  present  in  the 
pages  of  so  fair  a  summarizer  as  Mr.  Saintsbury.  Even  La  Harpe 
in  France  and  Rymer  in  England  have  something  to  say  for 
themselves.  One  may  despise  the  character  and  depreciate  the 
influence  of  Rousseau.  But  the  first  impression  on  actually  read 
ing  his  Discourse  on  the  Origin  of  Inequality  of  his  "Social  Con 
tract"  is  one  of  amazed  indignation  at  the  discovery  that 
Rousseau  himself  anticipates  most  of  the  qualifications  and 
objections  of  the  critics  who  represent  him  as  a  rhetorician  of 
genius,  incapable  of  consecutive  thought.  In  short,  as  Mill  I 
believe  said,  there  are  two  classes  of  mind,  recognized  in  the 
vocabulary  of  no  party,  but  marking  a  more  important  distinc 
tion  than  any  party  line,  the  superior  and  inferior,  the  strong 
and  the  weak.  It  is  perhaps  expecting  too  much  to  ask  that  we 
teachers,  commentators,  and  textbook  writers  should  admit  that 
the  majority  of  us  do  not  belong  to  the  superior  class. 

Space  failing  for  further  illustration  of  the  applications  of  our 
idea,  I  may  touch  in  closing  on  its  practical  helpfulness  for  edu 
cation  and  culture  and  its  value  as  a  sentiment,  a  feeling.  It 
emancipates  and  liberates  us,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  formulas 
and  catchwords  of  contemporary  vogue,  which  we  are  in  no  dan 
ger  of  forgetting,  because  we  are  rarely  allowed  to  hear  anything 
else.  We  shall  still  retain  sufficient  faith  in  progress,  science, 
evolution,  relativity,  the  historic  method,  and  other  conquests 
of  the  nineteenth  or  twentieth  century  mind.  But  we  shall  view 
them  in  relation  to  a  larger  whole  and  apply  them  with  a  saving 
common  sense  and  sense  of  humor  which  mere  science  does  not 
always  give.  Democracy,  too,  is  a  conquest  of  progress  that  we 
are  in  no  danger  of  losing.  But  we  shall  henceforth  interpret  it 
as  equality  of  opportunity,  not  equalization  of  values.  We  shall 
not  take  it  to  mean  that  one  book  is  as  good  as  another,  or  that 
books  written  to  flatter  the  multitude  and  gratify  the  natural 
taste  for  bathos  of  the  unregenerate  man  are  necessarily  "more 


498  PAUL  SHOREY 

highly  evolved"  than  the  products  of  feudalism  or  the  ancient 
city  state.  The  spirit  of  humanism  knows  nothing  of  these  classi 
fications  of  the  "  science  of  literature."  There  is  one  great  society 
alone  on  earth,  the  noble  living  and  the  noble  dead.  That  society 
is  and  always  will  be  an  aristocracy.  But  the  door  of  oppor 
tunity  that  gives  access  to  it  opens  easily  to  the  keys  of  a  sound 
culture,  and  is  closed  only  to  the  ignorance  and  prejudice  that 
fixes  our  hypnotized  vision  on  the  passing  phantasmagoria.  A 
certain  type  of  educator  is  given  to  denouncing  the  tyranny  of 
the  classics.  There  is  no  intellectual  tyranny  comparable  to  that 
exercised  over  the  imagination  by  the  present,  the  up-to-date, 
with  its  incessant  panorama  of  self-representation,  its  myriad- 
voiced  iteration  of  itself  from  the  newspapers,  the  dime  maga 
zines,  the  platforms  that  mould  or  enforce  the  opinions  of  ninety 
million  men.  The  new  psychologists  have  coined  a  question- 
begging  epithet  into  a  pseudo-scientific  term,  "misoneism,"  or 
hatred  of  novelty,  to  stigmatize  the  hesitation  of  culture  to 
accept  every  popgun  of  hypothesis  as  the  crack  of  doom.  What 
Greek  compound  will  do  justice  to  that  hatred  of  the  old,  that 
distaste  for  everything  not  mentioned  in  yesterday's  newspaper, 
which  seals  their  minds,  and  the  minds  of  the  generation  which 
they  are  educating,  to  so  much  of  the  inherited  beauty  and  wis 
dom  of  the  world?  The  present,  like  the  poor,  we  shall  always 
have  with  us.  The  effect  of  educating  the  undergraduate  solely 
on  the  literature  and  the  ideas  of  the  day  will  be  to  clothe  the 
graduate  for  life  in  that  most  hopelessly  obsolete  of  all  garbs, 
the  fashion  of  yesterday.  Those  books  only  will  never  grow 
obsolete  and  out  of  date  whose  fashion,  like  the  unwritten  law  to 
which  Antigone  appealed,  is  not  of  to-day  nor  yesterday,  but  of 
all  time.  They  only  can  diffuse  through  the  college  life  that 
gracious  and  serene  atmosphere  of  beauty  and  right  reason  in 
which  the  young  soul  can  attain  its  fullest  stature.  The  literature 
of  the  hour  and  the  place  may  titillate  and  entertain,  but  only 
the  timeless  literature  of  the  world  can  elevate,  refine,  and  console. 

"Even  to  him  whose  heart  fresh  sorrow  wrings 
There  comes  a  solace  when  the  minstrel  sings. 
He  sings  the  heroes  of  the  olden  time, 
And  gods  that  walk  Olympian  heights  sublime. 
And  brings  swift  oubliance  of  every  woe; 
Such  spells  the  gifts  of  heavenly  song  bestow." 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT  499 

The  Homeric  rhapsode  no  longer  chants  the  fall  of  Ilion;  the 
white  robes  of  the  Muses  that  taught  Hesiod  gleam  no  more  in 
the  moonlight  where  Helicon  breaks  down  in  cliff  to  the  sea; 
Sappho's  divine  tortoise  shell  is  vocal  no  longer;  no  more  the 
rolling  anapaestic  curls  like  vapor  over  Athenian  shrines  in  the 
great  theatre  of  Dionysus;  the  Pan's  pipe  of  the  Theocritean 
shepherd  has  ceased  to  vie  in  sweetness  with  the  rustling  of  the 
pines  by  the  fountain  and  the  lowing  of  the  distant  kine;  the 
nightingales  of  Bion  have  fallen  mute,  and  the  water  springs 
that  spake  are  quenched  and  dead;  the  heard  melodies  have 
passed  away.  But  those  who  can  listen  to  the  lordly  music  flow 
ing  from  the  illimitable  years,  those  whose  souls  a  culture  which 
it  is  now  the  fashion  to  call  old-fashioned  has  keyed  to  receive 
the  far,  faint  vibrations  of  the  past,  for  them  those  soft  pipes 
play  on,  not  to  the  sensual  ear,  but,  more  endeared,  pipe  to  the 
spirit  ditties  of  no  tone. 

And  I  trust  that  you  will  not  think  me  fantastic  if  I  add  that 
this  feeling  of  communion  with  the  past,  this  sentiment  of  the 
unity  of  the  world's  best  literature,  is  an  emotional  refuge  from 
the  desolating  sense  of  vastness  and  confusion  which  results  from 
the  immensity  and  the  dispersion  of  our  intellectual  interests. 
We  are  all  familiar  with  that  nameless  horror  of  the  infinite 
which  overcomes  us  at  the  thought  of  endless  space  and  time. 
"The  eternal  silence  of  those  infinite  spaces  appals  me,"  says 
Pascal.  And  even  the  austere  Herbert  Spencer  writes  in  his  last 
book,  "Of  late  years  the  consciousness  that  without  origin  or 
cause  infinite  void  space  has  existed  from  all  eternity  and  will 
exist  when  man  has  passed  away  fills  me  with  a  feeling  from 
which  I  shrink."  The  highest  imaginative  expression  of  this 
sentiment  is  Tennyson's  poem  "Vastness,"  with  its  refrain,  — 

"Swallowed  in  Vastness,  lost  in  Silence,  drowned  in  the  deeps  of  a  meaningless 
Past." 

From  that  waste  welter  of  endless  space  and  time,  the  dome  of 
a  library  shuts  us  in  to  the  warm  little  world  of  literature,  charged 
with  human  thought  and  feeling.  This  is  the  true  Mid-garth  of 
Norse  mythology,  the  merry  middle  earth,  strongly  fenced 
against  Ut-garth,  the  icy  barrier  of  the  world,  the  home  of  the 
gigantic  abstractions  of  physical  science,  only  one  remove  from 


500  PAUL  SHOREY 

Niflheim  and  the  gulfs  of  chaos.  The  desolate  seons  of  geologic 
time  shrink  to  the  thirty  post-Homeric  centuries,  and  the  myri 
ads  of  lonely  suns  and  the  waste  vacancies  of  inter-stellar  space 
become  only  the  dim  background  for  those  luminous  points, 
Jerusalem,  Athens,  Rome,  Florence,  Paris,  Weimar,  London. 

But  again  within  this  human  world  another  vastitude  con 
fronts  us  from  which  we  can  find  refuge  only  in  some  simplifying 
selection  of  the  best.  A  huge  collection  of  antiquities,  a  many- 
corridored  art  gallery,  the  millions  of  volumes  gathered  beneath 
the  great  dome  of  the  British  Museum,  are  hardly  less  oppressive 
to  the  soul  than  the  myriads  of  rolling  suns  that  burn  and  brand 
his  nothingness  into  man.  Infinite  is  the  detail  of  modern  erudi 
tion.  Unless  we  find  a  way  to  master  it,  it  will  master  us  and 
crush  our  spirit.  If  literature  and  history  are  a  Heraclitean  flux 
of  facts,  if  one  event  is  as  significant  as  another,  one  book,  one 
idea,  the  equivalent  of  another  as  objects  of  abstract  science, 
we  may  for  a  time  bravely  tread  the  mill  of  scholastic  routine, 
but  in  the  end  the  soul  will  succumb  to  an  immense  lassitude  and 
bafflement.  But  if,  to  wrest  the  old  Platonic  phrases  once  more 
to  our  purpose,  the  flux  is  not  all,  if  the  good,  the  true,  and  the 
beautiful  are  something  real  and  ascertainable,  if  these  eternal 
ideals  reembody  themselves  from  age  to  age  essentially  the  same 
in  the  imaginative  visions  of  supreme  genius  and  in  the  persistent 
sanity  and  rationality  of  the  world's  best  books,  then  our  reading 
and  study  are  redeemed,  both  from  the  obsessions  of  the  hour, 
and  the  tyranny  of  quantitative  measures  and  mechanical 
methods.  The  boundless  ocean  of  books  is  before  us,  and  the 
courageous  reader  will  make  many  a  bold  voyage  of  discovery 
to  rarely  visited  shores.  But  more  and  more  as  the  years  go  by 
will  he  concentrate  his  attention  on  the  books  that  preserve  from 
age  to  age  the  precious  distillation  of  the  human  spirit  in  its  finest 
flower.  They  are  not  so  many  but  that  he  may  in  time  hope  to 
seek  them  out  and  in  some  sort  to  know  them.  They  are  com 
paratively  few,  but 

"That  few  is  all  the  world  which  with  a  few 
Doth  ever  live  and  move  and  work  and  strive." 


THE  END 


RE 


Tl 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below, 
or  on  the  date  to  which  renewed.  Renewals  only: 

Tel.  No.  642-3405 

Renewals  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  date  due. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


ftfll_ 

fueena  or  wiNltR  Quarter 
subject  to  recall                    FEB  2  2  '73  t  2 

1* 

REC'D  IB    MAR  1  7  73  -*  PM  #  3    I 

APR    4  1982 

KfctP     MAR      0  1982 

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JUN  ^  o  Z003 

SEP  1  9  2002 

—                                                      j 

LD21A-40m-3,'72 
CQll73SlO)476-A-32 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


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